We shouldn’t be surprised by Donald’s willingness to do whatever he can get away with. He’s been doing things because he can, without caring for whether he should, most of his life.
Donald’s long history of doing things just because he can
Emergence of Islamic State an embarrassment for national security community
The Islamic State remains a puzzle to U.S. policymakers and analysts. The national security community in the United States and the West neither predicted the Islamic State’s rise, nor has been able […]
Do Saudi Citizens prefer the Islamic State to the House of Saud?
A poll indicates that Saudi citizens seem to find the Islamic State’s repressiveness and barbarism less objectionable than the House of Saud’s corruption. In a New York Review of Books review of […]
Burning alive of Jordanian fighter pilot more evidence Islamic State refuses to grow up
By burning alive Jordanian fighter pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, the Islamic State reinforced an apparent commitment to behave like a terrorist organization, not a state. It’s well known that revolutionary movements and/or terrorist […]
Maliki big loser in the blame game
However vindictive and mule-headed, Prime Minister Maliki doesn’t deserve all the blame for the success of ISIS in Iraq. Everyone wants to blame Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the military success […]
The two faces of ISIS: summary executions and planting flowers
The march of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham is marked by both savagery and the provision of social services. At the Washington Post Monkey Cage, Andrew Shaver and Gabriel Tenorio […]
Why ISIS shouldn’t be branded terrorists
Terrorism leads to panicked over-reaction. Yesterday I posted about Kenneth Pollack’s valuable Iraq Military Situation Report that appeared June 14 on the website of the Brookings Institution where he’s a senior fellow in the Saban Center for […]
A quick resolution to the ISIS offensive not likely
It could bog down like the Iran-Iraq War. Kenneth Pollack is infamous for his 2002 book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. That doesn’t mean he’s incapable of producing valuable […]
ISIS atrocities, real or imagined, only guarantee reprisal will be merciless
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria may be clever and rich but stoking the revenge machine reveals how impoverished its collective imagination is. Over the weekend the Sunni militants of Islamic […]
ISIS: common enemy of Iran and the United States
It’s ironic that Iraq’s last two enemies now stand ready to defend it against a third enemy, ISIS. The advance of ISIS into Baghdad is on hold at the moment in part […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 