Posts Tagged ‘Hezbollah’


“National” and “Global” Political Islam: A Response to Hroub’s Review of Roy’s Books

Professor Khaled Hroub’s review of Olivier Roy’s three books—The Failure of Political Islam; Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah; and The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East—published in your Journal, New Global Studies (Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2009, Article 6), is interesting but leaves the reader wanting more analysis.

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Dealing with Iran’s Exercise of “Smart Power”

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The Financial Times, a right of center but highly respected newspaper, could not resist about coming up with a sensational headline: “Hizbollah confirms broad aid for Hamas.”  The Hizbollah-Hamas connection is not exactly an unknown variable, only its specifics are.  Even after the admission of Hezbollah’s deputy leader that his organization is providing military assistance [...]

The Shia-Sunni Power Play in the Middle East

The continuing public spat between Hezbollah and Arab states is a mixture of old and new styles of power play.  The “old” part implicitly involves Iran–the chief supporter of Hezbollah–while the new aspect of this power play is between the antiquated monarchies and the nexus between Iran and Hezbollah.  Iran is the “rising power” of [...]

Thinking about Israel’s Unthinkable Image in Palestine

A London Times

dispatch reads:  “Tony Blair makes his first trip to the Gaza Strip.”  In the growing global economic meltdown, the world has forgotten the suffering of the Palestinians who became victims of Israel’s “war” against Hamas.  How can there be a war between the most well equipped military of the Middle East [...]

Tidibits and Morsels (4)

MAY BE DECLINING, BUT STILL THE UBERPOWER
 
Regardless of whether you are among those who are baffled about the economic problems that continue to ail the U.S. with no end in sight, or among those who are cheering the noisy fall of the mightiest among nations, here is one of the most cogent [...]

“Hell” Must be Where Extremism Mushrooms

Looking at the tepid global reaction to the massacre of the civilians in Gaza, one wonders whether the conscience of the international community is half asleep or is suffering from something called sympathy fatigue.  Hundreds of civilian casualties, incessantly escalating human misery, and with no end in the Israeli military action in sight, even God [...]

Impasse-Oriented Conventional Politics Only Empowers Militants

The United States never understood one feral rule of the Arab Middle East and Muslim South Asia: there is little hope left that the conventional politics will resolve the Muslim misery or problems of liberty either from domestic tyrants or from the tyranny of occupiers.  That leaves only those who despise the U.S. and all [...]

Will the Levant Experience a New Power Realignment?

Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated on February 12, 2008.  He was the alleged mastermind of the massive attacks on the U.S. and French Marines in Lebanon in 1983.  His cohorts were allegedly involved in bombing Jewish targets in Argentina and for terrorist attacks in France in the early 1990s, resulting in more than 100 deaths.  Borzou [...]

Iraq: Breaking Up is Hard to Do

If either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wins the net presidential election, there is going to be a radical change at least in the current size of American troop presence in Iraq.  But if John McCain were to win, the present U.S. commitment would remain the same or would even increase.  But the bottom line [...]