International Crisis Group has just published a new report entitled "Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge." It's findings are summarized thusly:
Gershom Gorenbergwrites about how hardened assumptions about the Middle East, combined with a tendency to willfully ignore the interests of individual regimes in favor of a grand strategic framework, have often blinded American policymakers to reality in the region.
Indulging in one of his periodictirades against Christians who have the bad form to call attention to the widespread human rights abuses of the Israeli occupation, Marty Peretzinveighs against those perfidious Methodists, noting with apparent satisfaction a drop in church membership: