Matthew Duss

This article in yesterday’s Washington Post on Iraqi refugees returning to Baghdad was accompanied by this graphic of the new sectarian make-up of the city. Comparing Baghdad’s sectarian distribution in April 2006 to November 2007, we see a city completely transformed, with a majority of the formerly mixed neighborhoods now taken over by Shi’is, most […]

The Australian has what has just become one of my favorite headlines ever: “Sadr studying to become an all-powerful ayatollah.” While the story of Muqtada’s returning to seminary to continue his education is a very interesting and potentially extremely significant development, (achieving the rank of mujtahid would mean that Sadr could issue binding legal-religious edicts […]

With regard to the sputtering rage with which many neocons have greeted the NIE’s determination that a nuclear apocalypse is very likely not imminent, Eric Alterman and and George Zornick point out that this kind of thing has happened before, and before, and before. Conservatives massaging intelligence to achieve their policy objectives, and attacking the […]

With the last week’s NIE revelations undercutting the profitability of Rudy Giuliani‘s promising to be mean to Iran, he has apparently decided that being mean to illegal immigrants is the next best thing. The formerly pro-immigrant Giuliani says that if he thought the INS could have deported all of the city’s illegal immigrants “I would […]

Following on Ezra‘s post about James Kirchick‘s latest bout of self-parody, I think Daniel Levy’s scholarly work and his commitment to achieving a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians speaks for itself, and doesn’t need to be defended from the likes of Kirchick. I will note, however, that what I find interesting about the Levy-David […]

Over at Middle East Progress, Rafi Dajani and Ghaith Al-Omari state what should be obvious in regard to a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal: While it may be possible to reach one without including Hamas, it will be impossible to implement. Implementing a peace agreement…will require Palestinian reconciliation. If such an agreement meets Palestinian national aspirations and […]

In a clear act of Islamofascist [sic] sympathizery that seems to have slipped right by the finely tuned treason detectors of right blogistan, (time to clean out the Cheeto dust, guys!) Speaker Nancy Pelosi dons a hijab to celebrate the lighting of the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree. Won’t somebody please think of the children? (Photo: […]

Eric Martin has some comments on yesterday’s Robert Kagan column, in which Kagan risked the ire of Michael Ledeen by suggesting that the NIE’s conclusions indicate that the U.S. should talk to Iran. While I am pleased that one of the co-authors of one of the seminal works of late-era neoconservatism has put his pundiferous […]

Less than a week after the Annapolis conference, which was supposed to re-start peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli government has announced that it is adding more than 300 new homes to the settlement of Har Homa. You’d think Ehud Olmert might have waited longer than a week before making a move that […]

Shorter Michael Ledeen, on the NIE: “How could the U.S. intelligence community possibly think Iran is worth talking to?!! Haven’t they read my book?!!” I’m telling you, this guy is hilarious. –Matthew Duss