Matthew Duss

FRIENDS LIKE THESE. Yglesias directs us to this diavlog between Reza Aslan and Eli Lake, in which they discuss Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer‘s new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, specifically Walt and Mearsheimer’s claim that there is no strategic advantage for the U.S. in the special Israel-U.S. relationship. It’s pretty entertaining […]

FIXING TO GO ALL IN. There’s some good reporting here from Spencer Ackerman. It’s important to understand the U.S.-Iraqi Sunni alliance and Ayad Allawi‘s campaign to have himself installed as the new Iraqi Pinochet as components of the conservative push to start a war with Iran. “Indications that hardliners within the Bush administration are (again) […]

FOOL’S ERRAND. This Fred Kagan piece condemning the GAO report on Iraqi benchmarks is really a masterpiece of excuse-making. Not only is Kagan excoriating Congress essentially for not grading the surge according to criteria which would ensure a good grade, he’s defending a strategy of arming factions that, as Rob pointed out yesterday, is inimical […]

ANTI-DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION. Following on Doctor Robert‘s post, while I agree with Rob’s statement that “the strategy of allying with Sunni tribes amounts to a renunciation of U.S. state-building aims in Iraq,” I’d also add that recent developments in President Bush‘s Middle East policy, most notably the $65 billion in arms going to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, […]

LEDEEN’S IRANALYSIS. Utterly dedicated to the task of getting us into war with Iran, self-described “Iranologist” Michael Ledeen has taken it upon himself to decide who does and does not qualify as a true Iraqi. “A footnote to Fred Kagan’s exceptional work on events in Iraq: he rightly says “al Qaeda in Iraq is a […]

“HOARD WEAPONS, GROW GILLS, AND LEARN TO COMMUNICATE WITH SERPENTS.” Jonah Goldberg is upset that, two years after Katrina, the news media are still under-reporting their own failures. “Few of us can forget the reports from two years ago. CNN warned that there were “bands of rapists, going block to block.” Snipers were reportedly shooting […]

GUILTY PLEASURES. Jamie Kirchick takes a stand: “I’ll admit, the New York Post is a guilty pleasure. It’s the first paper I buy whenever I’m in the city. Like most of its readers, I take it for what it is, and enjoy it for a few minutes on the subway. It’s fun and understands its […]

MUQTADA CALLS A TIME OUT. The big news from Iraq is that Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his militia to stand down, though he has stated they will continue defensive operations against the occupation forces. Muqtada’s image has suffered greatly from the perception among Iraqis that elements of his Mahdi Army incited the violence we saw […]

DARWIN… DARWIN… ANYONE? ANYONE? You didn’t think “Intelligent Design” was going away, did you? After the devastating defeat of the Dover decision, in which a judge ruled, based upon scientific testimony as well as internal documents from ID’s own proponents, that ID was little more than religion dressed up in cheap science costume, the ID […]

LEAVE THE GUN, TAKE THE HADGI BADAH. Today’s LA Times, on the difficulties of rooting out Muqtada al-Sadr‘s Mahdi Army: Many soldiers also say practices that worked against insurgencies in other wars or in other parts of Iraq may not apply to Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods. The Al Mahdi militia is not a textbook insurgent group. […]