Iran: Lately of the Axis of Evil

The question is: Does the Obama administration really believe a different Iranian president means Iran is now willing to reverse more than 15 years of stated policy ,shutter dozens of facilities and flush the billions of dollars it has invested in its nuclear weapons program?  It really believes this or it is cynically and fearfully pretending this is the case so it can allow Iran to run out the clock.  If the U.S. and Iran are "negotiating" some worthless piece of paper to achieve peace on our time, Israel would be under enormous pressure to not attack Iran's facilities and so implicitly accept a nuclear Iran.

Another question is: Will Israel go along with this charade?  If we believe Israel's rhetoric it can not afford to allow it and considers it an existential threat.  If it does not act at some point what are we to make of this?  Was the rhetoric overblown in the first place?  Can Israel, the Middle East and the West live with an Iranian bomb?  Unfortunately we are probably going to find out soon enough.

Media Wars: Politics of Movies

2001-2008

Lions to Lambs
Farenheit 9/11
Dark Times
Haditha...


2009-2014

Zero Dark Thirty
Captain Phillips
The Messenger
Lone Survivor from book

Proposed Chapters

Syria & Libya: Civil Wars as Proxy War
Bin Laden: Dead or Alive
World War: Unfighting the Global War on Terror, Man Caused Disasters and Overseas Contingency Operations
Afghanistan: Surging Troops to the Exit
Iraq: Precipitous Abandonment/Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
Warrior-Centric: Is Sequestration the New Normal?
Iran: Ascendent Shiite Power
WMD: Syria/Iraq? Libya, North Korea, Iran
Victory: Spring Time for Arabs, Westernization vs Islamization
Homeland Security: "self" radicalized in Boston, Ft Hood, Michigan (Underwear bomber), NY (Times Square bomber) see American cleric
Cyber Space: chapter?

Sources and Methods/Media Wars

Credibility is really all a researcher/writer has in the end.  Elizabeth O'Bagy, formerly of the Institute for the Study of War has been fired from the think tank as well as the Wall Street Journal for apparently lying about having a Ph.D. from Georgetown University (she did reportedly earn a B.A. and did study Arabic in the Middle East)  a lot more troubling is her previously unacknowledged affiliation with a group called the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a pro-rebel group. She has appeared on Fox news as a Syria expert and her work with ISW was cited publicly by Secretary Kerry.  Her analysis that the rebel groups are distinct, geographically separated and not compromised by the jihadist elements might all be correct, but she has put her credibility in jeopardy by misrepresenting herself.

9/11: Conspiracy Theories 12 Years Later

There was a lot of strain on the American people in the months and years following the 9/11 attack.  You can almost understand how some traumatized people looking to make sense of the horrible event and its aftermath might seek answers in the form of conspiracy theories. The idea that dark and powerful forces operate behind the scenes has a seductive quality for some and so we got the 9/11 Truthers, people who read some stories on the internet or watched the video "Spare Change" and were convinced 9/11 was an inside job.  Just to clarify: this is an insanely paranoid idea with not credible evidence to support it

Conspiracy theories are pretty tame in the U.S. compared to the Middle East where the fever swamps are rife with a menagerie of conflicting, competing and contradictory theories where every crazy idea imaginable is given currency.  Have you heard the one about how the various terrorist groups stalking the world are actually creations of the U.S. used to stir up trouble and give it an excuse to meddle in the Muslim World? Sadly, there are plenty more where this one came from.

Iraq: Who Lost Iraq?

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and emergence of a embryonic democracy in Iraq was the biggest foreign success since the end of the Cold War.  But the 4,000 plus American deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars might all have been for nothing.  Obama's incomprehensibly stupid decision to pull all troops from Iraq will likely spell doom for Iraq and U.S. policy.  Iran will do its best bring Iraq under its sphere of influence and turn an ally against us.

Victory: Arab Spring

Since 2011 when the so called Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia when a street vendor killed himself to protest abuse he'd suffered at the hands of local police the Middle East has destabilized to a dangerous point. Egypt's saga of ousting Mubarak, electing Mursi of the Muslim Brothers, he in turn ousted by the military as well.  Syria is even more troubling with a two year old civil war that has killed 100,000 people, seen a growing jihadist faction among the rebels and the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.  Iran and Russia support the regime with Saudi Arabia sending aid to the rebels.

Benghazi, Libya - U.S. consulate attacked on 9/11/12 Amb Stevens and three others killed.  CIA annex also attacked - gun running through Libya, to Turkey to Syrian rebels?

The U.S. has dithered in the background - Obama asserted use of WMD would be a red line but regime used them several times without consequences so far -last use in 8/13, with 1,400 plus killed in suburbs of Damascus.

Not what Pres Obama expected when he gave his Cairo speech in 2009.

Arab spring - connected to Iraq democracy at all?

Sources and Methods

I used Middle East expert Yossef Bodansky as a source in a couple of chapters "A Short History of the Long War."  For example, his book "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," which predated 9/11, chronicled Bin Laden's rise as a terror mastermind.  As a respected expert on foreign policy and national security I take his analysis seriously.

So what do I do now that Mr. Bodansky has written an article about the Obama administration knew that Syrian rebels, probably al-Qaeda, used the chemical weapons outside Damascus, not the Assad regime (there are supposedly reports about "kitchen sarin" being used - which has a strong odor - sarin has none.)  He even argues the U.S. knew about the attack in advance and helped arm the rebels with shipments of small arms shortly before the chemical attack took place.  This seems like quite a conspiracy theory that relies on multiple unnamed sources.  Until there's some evidence this is just a strange story

The Global Struggle Against Militant Islamism Part Two

When I published the first book in 2008 I knew then I would want to continue with this work at some point.  Obviously a lot has happened in the intervening 5 years including the President Obama's two electoral victories, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the complete U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, and the so-called Arab Spring and the ensuing waves of political upheaval and violence in places like Egypt, Libya and Syria.  Although there has still be no attack on American soil even approaching the devastation of 9/11, there have been a number of small attacks like Major Hasan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon Bombing.  All of these events and much more would be covered by the second volume