Matthew Duss

Eric Martin suggests that Democrats call Bush’s veto bluff, and proceed with legislation making private contractors in Iraq subject to prosecution in U.S. courts. I agree. Martin writes: “Bush’s eventual veto won’t leave Maliki very much room in terms of satisfying the mounting domestic calls to take action. Under normal conditions, such a crisis faced […]

Noah Pollak is concerned that the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis might subvert the dominant paradigm: “The risk is that if and when the peace conference fails — these events do not exactly have a promising track record — Israel will have set itself up to be blamed for the debacle, and we will […]

I heard this NPR story this morning as I made pancakes: “Seven thousand evangelical Christians from nearly 100 countries are in Israel this week to show support for the Jewish state.[…]The evangelical Christians in colorful costumes wave flags, sing and dance — marching as part of the city’s traditional parade for the Jewish holiday of […]

Michael Ledeen tries punching above his weight: “[Seymour] Hersh has been announcing the imminent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites for many months, and has now changed the lyrics to that chant. He now says that there’s been a change in program: we’re going to bomb military targets, Revolutionary Guards bases, and so forth. As usual, […]

There’s an Interesting LA Times story today on actors of Middle Eastern descent struggling with the roles available to them: “Arabs and Arab Americans in Hollywood live in an interesting time. The appetite for Middle Eastern stories and themes boomed after 9/11 and grew again with the ongoing grind of the war in Iraq. But […]

Read the following and see if you can guess whether David Frum is writing about Iraq back in 2003, or about Iran today: “You want realism? It’s this: The emerging US-____ confrontation is a confrontation of ___’s choice and ____’s making. It is ____ that has determined to seek nuclear weapons, ____ that has declared […]

Jonah Goldberg brings his favorite analytical tools, the broad generalization and the unsubstantiated assertion, to bear upon the question of “national culture,” with predictable results: “I’ve come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people […]

Via LGM, Ann Althouse on Hillary Clinton‘s laugh: “I think it was her strategy to make us talk about that instead of substantive problems she has. It’s a distraction. She’s deliberately laughing in a way designed to derail us from going in a direction that would hurt her. (So was the cleavage.)” You know how, […]

Glenn Greenwald on the fetishization of violence that characterizes Right Bedwetterstan: “Bombing and killing Muslims is the only path for avoiding the humiliating scenarios which our nation’s war cheerleaders carry around obsessively in their heads, and which are currently filling my inbox. They’re not going to be the ones on their knees, begging. They’re not […]

John Podhoretz: “Is the surge in Iraq working? Consider this plain, simple and overwhelmingly powerful fact: Hundreds and hundreds of Iraqis are alive today, on Oct. 2, who’d be dead by now if there had been no surge.There were 1,975 Iraqi civilian fatalities in August. In September, the number fell to 922 – a drop […]