Now comes (yet another!) book by one of the hordes of nation-security technocrats who dominate West Asian policymaking in Democratic administrations here in Washington. In this case, it is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, a recent book by Steven Simon, a guy who has worked as first … Continue reading An intriguing but frustrating window into Obama’s West Asia policy
On January 25, the Rand Corporation issued a short-ish study of the conflict in Ukraine, titled “Avoiding a Long War: U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.” The Rand Corporation was initially founded as a think-tank that would provide “Research & Development” (R-and-D) advice to the U.S. military and it still remains strongly, … Continue reading Rand’s latest Ukraine assessment assessed
Almost from the beginning of the US-supported regime-change project in Syria, US policymakers have incorporated several kinds of planning for what is called “transitional justice” into their pursuit of the project. Transitional justice (TJ) is a field that came into great vogue in the mid-1990s, after two key developments in the post-Soviet world: (1) the … Continue reading Syria and “Transitional Justice”
Washington DC, April 23 — Last week, the redacted text of the Mueller Report dropped-into a Capitol Hill that will spend much of the rest of the present Congressional session dealing with its fallout. Robert Mueller’s investigation was into allegations only of Russian interference in U.S. politics. But at one point his report highlights some highly questionable … Continue reading The UAE’s seedy influence operations are a footnote in the Mueller Report
