A New Cabal Rising!

Who are the realists?


Well, if memory serves me correctly, and it does, they are the selfsame crowd that supported the Afghan mujahideen and facilitated, and downright aided, the emergence of Bin Laden and Taliban. This strategy did serve to humiliate the Soviets, no doubt about that, but it did also, well, help plant the seeds for 9/11. Continue reading “A New Cabal Rising!”

Engaging Syria – Opportunity or Ambush?

The following is a bullet-point summary of my recent presentation at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. The “other side,” so to speak was represented by my favorite sparring partner Joshua Landis.

* Just as is case with military engagement, political engagement has its rules. The following is one such rule: when dealing with corrupt authoritarian regimes, especially when they seem to have some ideological motivation, no matter how minimal, you do not give more than you take, lest you end up creating a problem in the future that is bigger than the one you were trying to resolve. Continue reading “Engaging Syria – Opportunity or Ambush?”

A Heretical Release!

A press release issued by the Reform Party of Syria on October 18, 2006 claims that Ammar Abdulhamid, a Nonresident Fellow at Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will be opening an office in Washington DC on behalf of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and/or the National Salvation Front (NSF). This is false.

Mr. Abdulhamid is not a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and has never been. He is not opening and will not be opening an office for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and/or the NSF in Washington DC. Mr. Abdulhamid is a founding liberal member of the NSF, a broad-based pragmatic coalition of Syrian opposition groups and independent liberal activists. Continue reading “A Heretical Release!”