Wahhabis in the Dustbin?
This is a fascinating analysis by Hassan Hassan of the Saudi royal family trying to rewrite its past. It is available on the New/Lines website. Here is the…
Tag: Terrorism Issue
Far Horizons, Arduous Journeys, and The Conference of the Birds
“The Concourse of the Birds” (ca. 1600), Metropolitan Museum of Art by Jon W. Anderson Amid the blizzard of punditry and spin-doctoring – especially spin-doctoring from perpetrators…
The Ghost of Amanullah: Afghanistan Redux
The Khyber Pass in 1923 Historians generally assume that “modernity” jump-started in Afghanistan in 1919 with the crowning of Ghazi Amanullah Khan as emir and later as king…
Picturing the “Enemy”
My friend Karim Ben Khelifa, an award-winning photographic journalist who I met over a decade ago, has produced an extraordinary film (“The Enemy”) on his experience as a…
Weapons of the Syrian War
For an animated video of the weapons used by all sides in Syria, click here. by Ben Watson, Defense One, July 19, 2016 From chlorine gas to Kalashnikovs,…
Trump’s Muslim Bashing
The Atlantic (June 16) has a powerful piece by Uri Friedman on Donald Trump’s rampant Muslim bashing with responses by six Muslim commentators and scholars. It is well…
Reforming Saudi Arabia?
Mystique of Monarchy Post-War Watch – April 19, 2016 https://postwarwatch.com/2016/04/19/mystique-of-monarchy/ MADAWI AL-RASHEED — Limited social and political reforms in Saudi Arabia only prolong t…
On Drones
Al-Jazeera has recently published an article on an American serviceman who helped design the drone program in Afghanistan. The article is online here. I published my critique of…
Ten Ways on How Not To Think About the Iran/Saudi Conflict
by Omid Safi (@ostadjaan), On Being columnist, January 7, 2016 In the last few days, virtually every news outlet has featured a series of stories on the rising…
Geopolitics in the Middle East: A new century dawns
Faisal party at Versailles Conference. Left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri as-Said, Prince Faisal (front), Captain Pisani (rear), T. E. Lawrence, Faisal’s attendant (name unknown), Captain Hassan Kha…
Armageddon after Ankara
The Ankara bombing: Presaging the end of the Turkish Republic? What we have witnessed in the last two years, culminating in the horrible scenes of 10 October in…
The Refugee Crisis and Orientalism
My latest post on the refugee crisis in Europe.
Tunisia after the terror attacks
by Rachid Ghannouchi © Qantara.de 2015 Translated from the German by Nina Coon A battle for freedom and dignity In the wake of the attacks on Sousse and…
Voltaire on Tolerance
The author of Candide knew that this was not the best of all possible worlds. But Voltaire has sound advice about the importance of tolerance, written over two…
Commentary Hell
We moderns devour news as if it were a staple food. Gone are the days when one sat down for coffee in the morning with a daily newspaper.…
If faith comes from Yemen…
For my post at Mena Tigningen, click here.
The Bridge over Islamophobia
John Esposito at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service has just provided a unique website to chart the pace of islamophobia…
Clausewitz Updated and downsized
There is a nicely done satire by Sean McFate on how to take over a small country. Check it out here. Note: Only the rich may apply.