August 21, 2016 Mr. Engel is chief foreign correspondent for NBC News. He has become a household name in America regarding news from the Middle East. Thinking that I could learn something interesting from his new book, I ordered my copy, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East. I was… Continue reading
August 14, 2016 When I first signed up for a Political Science class in college, I took a course on American Government. I wanted to know about the party of Abraham Lincoln and that of Harry Truman. But our cynical professor curtly tossed out an expression that I had never heard before: “Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”… Continue reading
August 11, 2016 “Impious Mars rages through the world: Just as when the chariots stream from the starting gates, Add to their speed each lap, and the charioteer tugging vainly at the bridles, Is dragged on by the horses, the chariot not responding to the reins.” Thus did Virgil’s poem Georgics describe the aftershock of… Continue reading
July 1, 2016 The ancient Prophet Ezekiel said the Lord plunked him down in a valley “full of dry bones” and asked him, “Can these bones live?” If the dry bones of dead Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad could live, they would surely be shouting at his son above the din of the shocking suicidal attacks… Continue reading
June 23, 2016 “Anything is better than lies and deceit!” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Is there no limit to the pool of deceit that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan won’t dive into—and pop up lying even worse? His latest devious dip into the make-believe world came in an op-ed piece he penned for Bloomberg… Continue reading
June 9, 2016 Summer is upon us and if you are looking for a good book to read make sure it is Ataturk by Lord Kinross. Although old, it is refreshingly “new,” that is, if you subscribe to the human events as cyclical in nature or as a French proverb puts it, “The more things… Continue reading
“Democracy is like a bus ride. Once I get to my stop; I get off.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan Kani Xulam May 18, 2016 The Kurds and the Turks were not supposed to fight one another this year. High-level peace talks last year were so promising that a Mandela- style house-arrest was being considered for imprisoned… Continue reading
May 16, 2016 Events that normally happen once in a hundred years in Europe and America are taking place in a week one after the other in the vicinity of Kurdish lands with profound consequences for the Kurds. Stunning pictures from Baghdad reveal the destruction of the parliament building, as if someone was hoisting a… Continue reading
March 31, 2016 When Winston Churchill published The World Crisis, his contemporary Arthur Balfour called the book “Winston’s brilliant autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe.” The same can be said of Abdullah Ocalan’s latest book, Imrali Notlari. This account of “peace talks” on the island of Imrali, first published in early 2015, got… Continue reading
Mar 16, 2016 Some Kurds think the successes of Turkish leaders are gains for Kurdish masses. Not me! Greater Turkish successes delay freedom for the Kurds and stall liberation of Kurdistan in the greater Middle East. When Turkish leaders blundered by weirdly claiming that Muslims first discovered the Americas and built mosques before churches arose… Continue reading