Here is a different approach to assessing the situation in Iraq. It is a small part of a larger assessment of political risk around the world by Ian Bremmer entitled A Political-risk Outlook for 2008. He is a political scientist who makes his living advising Wall Street clients specifically on the political risk aspect of [...]

In a recent post on the Iraqi Shiites I discussed Reuel Marc Gerecht’s Why the Worst is Probably Over in Iraq which takes the view that the moderate Shiite support for democracy led by Grand Ayatollah Sistani had survived the civil war. In the course of looking more deeply into Gerecht’s his work I found [...]

I just finished David Bellavia’s House to House, an infantry Sargent’s account of the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004. In personal terms it is about one man’s struggle to come to terms with his own shortcomings as a soldier and even as a father and husband. In military terms it is a detailed [...]

The centre in Iraq has always been the Shiite majority and its decisive role has been both under estimated and under reported. The Kurds did exactly what the Bush administration hoped all of Iraq would do – get on with peaceful self government and economic activity. The Sunnis chose insurgency and the resulting violence has [...]

Richard Fernandez (Wretchard) of the Belmont Club brings a historian’s perspective to some of the more simplistic thinking being put about by both left and right regarding the unfolding of events in Iraq. The whole thing, as they say, is well worth a read. Without detracting a whit from the unique contributions of General Petraeus [...]

Michael O’Hanlon has an opinion piece in USA Today that reminds me of the old Democratic party that I used to support. The first Democrat I remember is Harry Truman and what I remember about him is that he gave ‘em hell. Truman earned that1948 victory grin in the last campaign to be fought from [...]

Not only are there specialized terrorist media groups operating under the command of ‘media Emirs’ in Iraq, special forces are being used to hunt them out. Bill Roggio gives us background in this 28 Nov post: Multinational Forces Iraq began to heavily target al Qaeda’s media apparatus over the summer of 2007. The capture of [...]

Milblogger Greyhawk at The Mudville Gazette makes this observation about the current opportunity to stabilize Iraq and the history of the insurgency with a soldier’s irony. We may have had a similar opportunity in 2003. Some have made that claim, though I’m not certain it’s accurate. I’m more certain that at the time there were [...]

Richard Fernandez has a post at Pajamas Media about the apparent failure of the British ‘softly softly’ approach in Southern Iraq. It wasn’t long ago the wise and the good where holding up the British example as the right way and the American way as plainly and obviously wrong. I’m not criticizing Fernandez here. What [...]

I’m trying to write this post about TV because my Normblog profile went up today (shameless I know) and of course I’m stuck. When I’m stuck I check what time is in Joisey City and give my friend Joey the Tuna a call. ME: Tell me Joey, what do you think of TV? Joey: You [...]