the rational post » the middle east

calculated terror

The Editor — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:27:01 +0000

In the 400+ years since the birth of modern statistics, data has been collected on everything from life expectancy and planetary motion to little league batting averages and micro-loans in rural Bangladesh. As technology catches up with the world’s desire to better predict the future and understand the past, applications have expanded to include dynamic models of the global economy and more recently the probability of a terrorist attack. The danger with relying on this methodology, of course, is that the same statistical biases that contributed to the recent financial chaos may cause more harm in the real world than they ever did on…

demise of the dollar

The Editor — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:34:28 +0000

This type of geopolitical conspiracy would be easy to dismiss from any other source, but speculation of an imminent de-dollarization by some of the world’s largest oil consumers is even more chilling when it’s penned by one of Britain’s most celebrated international journalists…

The demise of the dollar
By Robert Fisk, October 6, 2009

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to…

underground economies

The Editor — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:07:48 +0000

The existence of black markets in virtually every economy on the planet is a testament to human resourcefulness and natural entrepreneurship. For those that are building tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt, $100,000 and a few months work can generate up to $10,000 a day in fees, and help to provide critical supplies and less critical desires into the struggling Gaza strip. One economist has estimated that roughly 90% of the annexed economy is driven by these covert smuggling operations. Unfortunately, along with tea, cows, washing machines, and gas flow AK-47s, drugs, and anti-aircraft missiles as soaring Gazan demand meets profitable Egyptian supply…

Photo Essay: Gaza’s (Literal) Underground Economy
By Preeti Aroon in November 2008…

the forever war

The Editor — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:35:32 +0000

If there’s any doubt remaining among global power-brokers that short-term foreign policy objectives are fundamentally flawed, recent events in the Levant have provided ample evidence. Such tribal conflict has played out in the Garden of Eden since northern Neanderthals and southern proto-human colonies first crossed paths during the last major Ice Age. Since that time, control over the region has changed hands a number of times, from Semetic tribes to Egyptian pharaohs to Roman Catholics to Muslim traders to Christian crusaders to Muslim Turks, and so forth. For every fence that was built and every line that was drawn, rivals always built a bigger ladder or dug a deeper tunnel. And so the feud was passed from generation to generation,…

the enemy of my enemy

The Editor — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:48:57 +0000

After an inhospitable welcome at Columbia University and a defense of Iranian intentions in the halls of the UN, it was up to Charlie Rose to coax a straight answer from the puzzling Persian President and his schizophrenic vacillations between coherence and crusade. Neither Rose nor Ahmadinejad disappoint…

creature comforts

The Editor — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 02:59:54 +0000

This piece in the OpEd section of the Wall Street Journal could be written about any despotic regime in the history of humankind…except, of course, for the satellite dishes. Regime change rarely trickles from the top down, and when it does, it’s more like regime swap than any true social progression. In the case of Iran, a country with 70 million people — the majority of whom are under the age of 30 and two degrees removed from the last major revolution — the status quo isn’t all that bad. Those in the best position to pressure the powers that be are still too caught up in their sumptuous…

if looks could kill

The Editor — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:56:42 +0000

“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people. Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”
- Trent Lott, Republican Senator from Mississippi, up for re-election on November 7, 2006

the first stone

The Editor — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 04:15:35 +0000

Another topical analysis from the team over at Stratfor. This time, they tackle a much older problem, the relationship between religion and fundamentalist war. When taken in context, the 14th century passage that has outraged Muslims around the planet is not so much a challenge to Islam itself as it is a warning shot across the bow of its more fanatical elements. If Friedman is right, Pope Benedict may have just done for the war-torn Middle East what his predecessor did for the Soviet Empire. If he isn’t, this might be the beginning of another global crusade…

Faith, Reason and Politics: Parsing the Pope’s Remarks
By George…

the madman

The Editor — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 17:48:34 +0000

(Few have understood the Middle East and it’s people like Lebanese-born poet and scholar, Khalil Gibran. In this, my favourite of his smaller works, Gibran explores the concept of cultural integration and social identity, relevant now more than ever in the land he once called home)

Chapter One: How I Became a Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen — the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives — I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran…

1701

The Editor — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:40:07 +0000

With ink still drying on the UN Security Council’s draft resolution, Nusrullah has finally agreed to a cessation of hostilities, but insists that the fight will continue as long as Israeli troops are still on the ground. This, at a time when Israel itself has just voted to triple the size of its current military operation and continues to airlift troops into Southern Lebanon. Only time will tell if this latest in a long series of diplomatic efforts will succeed where the others have so catastrophically failed…

UNSC DRAFT RESOLUTION LEBANON 1701

The Security Council,

PP1. Recalling all its previous resolutions on Lebanon, in particular resolutions 425…

breakpoint

The Editor — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:50:14 +0000

Often referred to as a ‘private CIA,’ Stratfor just released an update on their coverage of the escalating violence in Iraq, the threat of another Sunni-Shi’a Civil War, and the challenge of unbridled Iranian imperialsm. Definitely worth a read if you haven’t been following the not-so-mainstream news…

Breakpoint: What went Wrong

By Dr. George Friedman
CEO, Security Consulting Intelligence Agency

On May 23, we published a Geopolitical Intelligence Report titled “Break Point.” In that article, we wrote: “It is now nearly Memorial Day. The violence in Iraq will surge, but by July 4 there either will be clear signs that the Sunnis are controlling the insurgency — or there won’t. If…

charlie rose

The Editor — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 17:44:35 +0000

Below is a transcript of the Charlie Rose interview with Rami Khoury, Editor-at-Large of The Daily Star, a leading English-language newspaper in Beirut. In the Middle East it’s been difficult to find a convincing argument against continued Israeli engagment in a non-Arab tongue, but this exchange, filmed on July 19th, cuts as close to the heart of the conflict as I’ve seen from a Palestinian commentator.

Charlie then followed up yesterday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who summarized the situation in his typical, pragmatic prose, sucessfully bringing Iran and nuclear arms into the discussion and accepting America’s share of the blame for mishandling the meltdown from the start. I’ve yet to find a transcript of the…

the lexus and the olive tree

The Editor — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:08:50 +0000

An engaging fictional dialogue between former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former Syrian President Hafaz el-Assad, from Thomas L. Friedman’s 2000 National Bestseller…

To illustrate this ever-present tension between today’s globalization system and the olive trees in us all, I once tried to imagine how a discussion would go if a very decent American Secretary of State, such as Warren Christopher, were to try to explain globalization to a not so decent leader, such as Syrian President Hafez el-Assad—a man of olive trees and the Cold War. It would sound like this:

Warren Christopher: “Hafez—you don’t mind if I call you Hafez? Hafez, you are yesterday’s man. You’re still living the Cold War. I know you’ve only…

shock and awe

The Editor — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:42:37 +0000

(No history of any region is impartial and no telling of events ever objective, but this one from the folks at the Lebanese Political Journal sums up the country’s isolated Christian perspective and addresses many of the conflict’s recent political inflections)

Lebanon: A Primer

To understand the current conflict, one must understand the way Lebanese think about this situation.

I’ll note historical events alive in the minds of Lebanese, and note why Lebanese aren’t “infantile” (the preferred Israeli term at the moment) for blaming Syria and Iran. There are many other events that occurred in this time period, but these are the ones Lebanese focus on at the moment.

1976 – The Syrian Army enters Lebanon.

1978 – Israel…

a golden summer

The Editor — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 18:25:32 +0000

An article on Slate.com from another American journalist with no desire to leave the greatest city in the Middle East. I’m with Faerlie…maybe it’s time to start buying up Lebanese real estate

Staying On: Why I’m not evacuating Beirut.
By Faerlie Wilson

BEIRUT, Lebanon—From my balcony this afternoon, I watched as French, British, and American evacuees boarded chartered cruise ships in Beirut’s port about a half-mile west of my apartment.

And over the last few days, while bombs and artillery pummeled the southern part of the city, I made the decision not to leave Lebanon. Explosions rock my building even as I write this, but I’m staying put.

I’m not crazy, and I harbor no death wish. This is…