David Ignatius's Blog, page 127

A plan to heal Syria?

With U.S.-backed “moderate” opposition forces on the run in northern Syria, a mediation group is proposing an alternative strategy for local cease-fires and a gradual de-escalation of violence in a future decentralized nation.

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David Ignatius: An Iranian who could balance Tehran’s factions?

An intriguing figure is gaining prominence in the Iranian government just as regional conflicts in Iraq and Syria intensify and nuclear talks with the West move toward a Nov. 24 deadline.

The newly prominent official is Ali Shamkhani, the head of Iran’s national security council. He played a key role last summer in the ouster of Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq’s prime minister. In interviews over the past few weeks, Iraqi, Iranian, Lebanese, European and U.S. officials have all described Shamkhani as a rising political player.

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Wishful thinking in the U.S. plans against the Islamic State

A glimpse of the anxiety sweeping the Arab world surfaced last week when an Arab woman complained during a talk in Amman at the Columbia Global Center for the Middle East. She said my speech’s title about the “crisis” in the region wasn’t accurate. The correct word was “disintegration.” The audience cheered loudly.

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David Ignatius: Iraq and the U.S. are losing ground to the Islamic State

AMMAN, Jordan

Jalal al-Gaood, one of the tribal leaders the United States has been cultivating in hopes of rolling back extremists in Iraq, grimly describes how his home town in Anbar province was forced this week to surrender to fighters from the Islamic State.

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The instinctual greatness of Ben Bradlee

The hardest thing to convey to outsiders about Ben Bradlee was the sheer pleasure of working for him. He took the ordinary work of reporting and editing a newspaper and made it seem like the coolest thing on the planet that a person could possibly do.

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A small organization offers a fresh approach on preventing terrorism

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates

Hedayah certainly doesn’t look like a global counterterrorism center. It sits in a quiet villa on Fatima bint Mubarak Street here. It has a staff of 14. Its annual budget wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of an Apache helicopter gunship.

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Remembering freewheeling energy titan Christophe de Margerie

BEIRUT — Christophe de Margerie was the kind of outsize character you wouldn’t expect to survive in in a homogenized global business environment. He loved single-malt whiskey, he cursed like a French sailor on shore leave, he stayed out way too late partying and he got in trouble with the law at home in France and abroad.

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Nothing to fear but panic itself

Richard Preston, whose 1994 book “The Hot Zone” brought the Ebola virus terrifyingly to life for readers, once described how, during his research, his biohazard suit had ripped open, exposing him to a potentially fatal toxin.

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Syrian opposition falls deeper into disarray

The political disarray of the Syrian opposition — and the regional feuding that drives it — deepened in Istanbul this week, as Qatar pushed its preferred Islamist candidate into a key leadership position of the major rebel coalition despite bitter protest from rival factions backed by Saudi Arabia and other nations.

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Obama faces growing pressure to escalate in Iraq and Syria

As fighters from the Islamic State surge in Iraq toward control of Anbar province in the west and the town of Kobane on the Syrian border , U.S. commanders and diplomats are signaling that the United States must expand its military operations before the extremists control even more territory.

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