Mahdi Army Transforming into Salvation Army?
The Mahdi Army might soon be the Iraqi equivalent of the Salvation Army, Gina Chon reports for the Wall Street Journal. Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- long a thorn in the side of the U.S. military and Iraqi government -- intends to disarm his once-dominant Mahdi Army militia and remake it as a social-services organization. The transformation would represent a significant turnabout ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 5, 2008 12:14
Tony Snow Dies of Cancer
Tony Snow has died. He was only 53. CNN Breaking: Former White House press secretary Tony Snow has died at the age of 53 after a second battle with cancer. Snow, who had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a recurrence of the disease, left his White House job September. 14, 2007, and joined CNN as a conservative commentator. More from ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 12, 2008 07:37
Is Time on the Iranians’ Side?
That's the central claim of David Ignatius's column in the Washington Post this morning: So imagine that you are Qassem Soleimani, commander of a covert Iranian army deployed across the Middle East: You doubt the Bush administration would run the risk of a military strike against Iran, but you can't be sure. You think America can't afford to play chicken in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 9, 2008 11:25
Decapitation as a Counter-Terror Strategy
Aaron Mannes has done an extensive statistical analysis on the effectiveness of decapitation (in the figurative as well as the literal sense) in counter-terrorism. It is conventional wisdom that removing an organization's leaders is an effective counter-terror strategy, but the quantitative analysis is less clear on the issue. Most of the successes focus on specific instances, such as the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 30, 2008 16:31
Mullen: We ‘Will Have to Deal with Iran in the Very Near Future’
Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a very profound statement at Monday night's Atlantic Council awards dinner that has received virtually no press notice: That we "will have to deal with Iran in the very near future." Here's the context: We also live in a time where Iran routinely pushes its way ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 24, 2008 15:27
Defeated Maliki Accepts Cease-Fire
Six days of Shiite-on-Shiite warfare in Basra appear over after Mahdi militia chief Moktada al-Sadr sued for peace* and the government agreed in a deal brokered by Iran. Whether this gets scored a "win" for Sadr or Prime Minister Maliki will likely vary depending on the predisposition of the evaluator. Based on what we know now, though, Maliki's gambit ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 31, 2008 06:09
Counterinsurgency Dulling Combat Skills?
Thomas Ricks reports that Matt Matthews, a historian at the Army's Combat Studies Institute, has written a new report concluding that "five years of fighting insurgents in Iraq may also have dulled U.S. soldiers' skills at more conventional combat." The study, apparently, isn't a case study of the U.S. military but rather the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and Israel's woeful ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 16, 2008 08:27
Hezbollah Leader Imad Mughniyeh Killed
Imad Mughniyeh, the man behind the the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut and the TWA Flight 847 hijacking, has been killed. A senior Hezbollah commander suspected in some of the highest-profile international terrorist attacks of the last 25 years has died in an explosion in Syria, Hezbollah TV said Wednesday. Imad Mughniyeh died Tuesday in an explosion in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 13, 2008 08:29
Most Saudis Oppose al Qaeda
A recent survey of Saudi Arabian adults finds a complicated view of America, terrorism, and freedom. Most Saudi Arabia citizens interviewed in a poll oppose terrorism and want closer ties with the United States. But many Saudis remain opposed to making peace with Israel, according to what researchers call an unprecedented survey of the kingdom. Ten percent of Saudis have ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on December 18, 2007 08:43
Does a Muslim Belong in the Cabinet?
Mansoor Ijaz reports that Mitt Romney has announced he would not appoint a Muslim to the cabinet were he elected president. His reasoning is a mite peculiar: I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 27, 2007 13:01
