The Futility of the Long U.S. War in the Middle East

by Paul Pillar Andrew Bacevich has done a tally of the number of countries in the Islamic world that, since 1980, the United States has invaded, bombed, or occupied, and in which members of the American military have either killed or been… Continue Reading

What Next?

by Robert E. Hunter Since the United States invaded Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, and began an era of major military operations in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, “what next” has been sometimes posed, but never adequately answered. To… Continue Reading

Squaring the Circle of ISIS

by Bernard Chazelle In matters of battle, there are certain things we’ve come to expect. The pairwise nature of combat, for example. From the playing fields of Eton to the morne plaine of Waterloo, sports and war alike feature two rival sides… Continue Reading

Why Obama Couldn’t Do Anything on Iran While Ross Was There

by Jim Lobe Following up on Paul Pillar’s excellent takedown of Dennis Ross’s remarkably crude display of Islamophobia (whereby Saudi Arabia is considered a “non-Islamist state,” while Syria’s Baathist regime is “Islamist”), it seems we can add Iranophobia to the… Continue Reading

Apocalypse Now, Iraq Edition

Fighting in Iraq Until Hell Freezes Over  by Peter Van Buren I wanted to offer a wry chuckle before we headed into the heavy stuff about Iraq, so I tried to start this article with a suitably ironic formulation. You know,… Continue Reading