On Sustainability
A guest post by Déaghán Ó Céitinn examining sustainability and the challenges posed by a deteriorating global environment. Currently resident inContinue Reading
Tag: The Middle East
Ze’ev Jabotinsky: The Iron Wall – We and the Arabs
On the 4th of November 1923 the Jewish-Russian newspaper Rassvet (“Dawn”) published a short essay by the conservative Zionist writer Ze’ev JabotinskyContinue Reading
How One Turbulent City In Iraq Can Stand For The Whole Country
With some sections of the Western news media proclaiming imminent victory over the Islamic State (an entirely nebulous concept given theContinue Reading
The Real Islamic State Is The Child-Crucifying Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia
As the United States and its allies (and foes) continue to dither over the expansion of ISIS/ISIL in the Syrian-Iraq borderlands andContinue Reading
The Middle East’s Proxy Wars
Two Middle Eastern nation states torn apart by internecine wars, two whirlpools of conflict which suck in others willingly or unwillingly. FirstContinue Reading
The War Nerd On The Conflict In Yemen
The War Nerd, the nom de guerre of the military blogger Gary Brecher (who in turn is the alledged nom de plumeContinue Reading
Barack Obama: ISIL… Grew Out Of Our Invasion
Related to my post on the rise of Iran as a regional superpower in the Middle East as a consequenceContinue Reading
Iran Emerges From The US War On Terror As A Regional Superpower
One of the more interesting if unintended outcomes of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been the elevationContinue Reading
The United States’ Perpetual Groundhog Day
The team at Tom’s Dispatch have done another excellent job of highlighting the seemingly perpetual nature of the United States’ military misadventures in theContinue Reading
Not All Islamic States Are Equal
There are two quasi-medieval Islamic states in the Middle East making the headlines at the moment. Both have fairly similar initial histories andContinue Reading
6000 Islamic State Fighters Killed In US-Led Attacks?
Back in October of 2014 the CIA estimated that the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq had a militaryContinue Reading
Those Leaked Al Jazeera Emails On Charlie Hebdo
The National Review Online, the web-version of the right-wing American current affairs magazine, has published a series of “leaked” emailsContinue Reading
Inside The Islamic State
Martin Chulov in the Guardian newspaper presents a fascinating insider analysis of the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) throughContinue Reading
The Yazidis And The Origins Of The Desert Religions
There are all sorts of crazy theories surrounding the rise of ISIS, now the Islamic State (IS), and its successesContinue Reading
The Rise Of The Islamic State
Reading Tom Holland’s stupendous (if controversial) history of the foundations of Islam, In the Shadow of the Sword, I wasContinue Reading
The Reality Of War
Philip Weiss links to a shocking and profoundly disturbing video of a Palestinian father unable to accept the killing of his youngContinue Reading
Rhetoric Should Take Second Place To Respect
The ongoing military operations being carried out against the civilian population of Gaza and Occupied Palestine as a whole byContinue Reading
Syria’s Other War
As if the dreadful loss in human life and untold misery inflicted upon tens of thousands wasn’t enough the internecineContinue Reading
AN SIONNACH FIONN 