Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Worthy Talk…

On Winning and Losing

Reading and watching Israeli media one can sense, from all sides left-center-right, that the war is excruciatingly tough and, holds unpleasant surprises including the post-war status of Gaza and the West Bank. Conversely, reading and watching Arab media, you have a feel that the fighting...

Tell me a Story …

So, the Iranian Ayatollah denied any involvement in the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel of Oct 7th. No one asked him to offer such a denial, no one suggested it, as he was under no obligation for doing so. We’ve rarely seen the Ayatollah offer free denials when it concerns the State of...

A Cure, or a Great Party……something Gott...

There is a schizophrenic, hypocritical, and somewhat bipodal attitude amongst the failed class of Lebanese politicians, or that cast of people that calls itself as such because the word ‘class’ bestows upon it something it seriously lacks and will never attain in this, or other lifetimes...

Let the Bells Toll

Lebanon is at a crossroads, again. Some cynics say that there are no roads left, and lesser crosses than in the past, to even mention crossroads. Such wordplay is not mere humor but a reality in a country where sectarian divisions have reached new heights and calls for division or secess...

Rumors of peace ….are just that

The Biden administration is floating a rumor regarding an imminent Saudi Israeli peace deal and that for several reasons, none of them being persuasive or remotely convincing. Some US sources claim that Netanyahu finds himself in a bin with the ongoing judicial reforms and is desperately...

Vichy and Lebanon, faces of the same coi...

When France surrendered to Germany in the early period of WWII, the most decorated officer of the French army Phillipe Petain, made a conscientious (though treacherous) decision to execute the Armistice Accords with the Nazis on June 22, 1940. His, was logic that France needed to prevent...

America’s Dilemma in the Middle East

“To stay, or not to stay”, that is the question. That could be a passage from Hamlet, paraphrased by U.S. strategists when reviewing their next moves on the Middle East chessboard. When the U.S. inherited the colonial crown of the British Empire, especially after WW II, it did not bargai...

A cry for Rome, before the Fall …. 

America is not losing to its foreign enemies, rather it is falling victim to its self-inflicted, domestic wounds. Ever since Barrack Obama’s presidency came to the fore, we have witnessed a rhetoric in America scarcely seen before. A loathing for what America stands for, on all counts...

Kung Fu Panda vs. John Wayne

The brokered truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia is an astounding diplomatic victory for China. Conversely, it is a gigantic diplomatic failure on the part of the Biden administration and for the US’ strategic interests as far as the Middle East is concerned. The regional protagonists...

Biden’s Expedient Realignment with the G...

Dana Stroul, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East recently attended a series of meetings in the GCC to discuss regional threats. Stroul leads the development of U.S. Department of Defense Policy and Strategy for Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuw...

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