Maliki’s political endurance hangs on the support of the Kurdish faction.
After having posted on the Kefer Soussah square project the other day I felt like I should also pass on some pics I snapped from inside the Tishreen National Sports Complex taken the same evening. The complex has been under construction for at least the past year…trust me, I would know, I work out there. […]
A few interesting links for your weekend consumption. First is a long post on the Syria Comment Blog. The post deals with changing norms surrounding the rights and place of women in Syria. Very interesting reading, especially early on. You can find it here. Second are a pair of articles from the New York Times. […]
I hope the Israelis are taking notes from this article in the Jerusalem Post. It describes exactly the too many things wrong with Mr. Abbas, and explains why he is irrelevant with friends and foes alike. His erratic policies and ability to negate every decision he has made are the reasons he cannot be a […]
The New York Times is reporting the Sadrist bloc has made a stunning reversal to support erstwhile opponent and political bugbear, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, for another term at the helm of the Iraqi government. The Sadrists’ 39 seats would prove the critical tipping point for the incumbent premiere.
The White House is pushing back against a D.C. rumor that President Barack Obama sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offering a slew of favors in exchange for a two month extension of the West Bank settlement freeze. The rumor originated from a blog written by researcher David Makovsky, who has ties […]
One of the main issues on the redevelopment agenda for Syria is transportation infrastructure. Much of the country has no choice but to use outdated roads, bridges, and other forms of transportation. Many of the main transportation resources here are literally crumbling. Thats why the new Kefer Soussah square project is so important, and shows […]
I’ve written time after time about the irrelevancy of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman. Yet, he still manages to suprise, not with an artful mastery of politics to gain clout, but with providing yet another excuse to his colleagues to dismiss him. Let’s review Leiberman’s history. Instead of examining events years ago, how about just […]
Last April, amid the Scud missile kerfuffle, Blake Hounshell called Syria “The dumbest country in the Middle East” on the Foreign Policy magazine blog. (He didn’t even have the common decency to capitalize Dumbest and Country.) I’ll be curious to see if Blake repeats the claim after the Russian Foreign Minister confirmed this month that […]
The Israeli intelligence services and the IDF have suffered some set backs of late that many critics have suggested indicates Israeli clandestine operations are in a free fall. “What happened to the days where (future Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud) Barack snuck into PLO headquarters in drag to assassinate some of the world’s most […]
Iran has confirmed that 30,000 computers have been infected with the “Stuxnext” worm. The worm has affected the Bushehr nuclear facility. According to reports this sort of worm could only be created by a government sanctioned hacking effort. Of course the prime suspects are Israel, Europe and the U.S. What’s interesting is that the worm affected […]
One of the reasons I’m writing this blog is to try and give readers a better idea of what Syria is like. Sometimes that means things like discussions of foreign policy, my post on the IAEA for instance. Other times it means we talk about domestic issues like the banning of the Niqab. Well today […]
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