Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 41

Interviewed on Ricochet

Judith Levy and Damien Counsell interviewed me about Syria and Lebanon for their podcast on Ricochet, and you can listen to it right here.

How to Become a Dictator

“If you decide you want to leave journalism,” Nadim Shehadi said to me over coffee at a café on Beirut’s old waterfront, “if you feel like you've been there and done that and would like to become a dictator, you should hire me as an advisor. I'm expensive, but I'm worth it.”

Shehadi, a Lebanese-born scholar at Chatham House in the UK, has dedicated enough of his life to Middle Eastern dictatorology that he probably would make a solid advisor. He’d never actually do it, but one can be a decent...

Book Promotion

For a few days only, the Kindle version of my novel, Taken, is on sale for just 4.99. Grab it now before the price goes back up.

Why the Syrian War Could Last Ten Years

I wouldn’t be surprised if Bashar al-Assad falls sometime soon, but I also will not be surprised if the year 2020 rolls around and Syria has all but ceased to exist as a nation state and he’s still ruling fragments of the ex-country like a Somali-style warlord. Lebanon’s Levantine sectarian war lasted fifteen long years. That doesn’t mean Syria’s Levantine sectarian war will last as long, but it could.

Take a look at the new piece by Gary Brecher (the self-described War Nerd). His use of the N...

The Muslim Brotherhood's Empty Chair

So the Washington Institute for Near East Policy invited senior Muslim Brotherhood official Helmy el-Gazzar to its annual conference in the US, booked him on a business class flight from Cairo, and put him up in the luxurious Ritz Carlton. El-Gazzar made it to Washington and checked into his room, but he refused to show up at the conference.

Why? Because Israelis—or “Zionists” as he called them—were also going to be there.

“We have just seen the most famous empty chair since Clint Eastwood at t...

Media Criticism Gets Results

Earlier this week I criticized the BBC for the following headline: Israeli strikes 'co-ordinated with terrorists.'

It was an absolutely ludicrous headline. Israel did not coordinate its air strikes against Syrian military installations with Al Qaeda. Neither the Israelis nor Al Qaeda would ever do such a thing.

I was hardly the only person who gave the BBC a hard time, and a few days later they finally changed it. It now reads: Syria says Israeli strikes 'co-ordinated with terrorists'

The second...

The New Black Hole of the Eastern Mediterranean

Until awfully recently, Lebanon was the country in the Eastern Mediterranean that acted as a gravitational black hole that sucked in the neighbors. The Israelis, the Syrians, the PLO, the Iranians, and even the non-neighboring French and Americans have been involved militarily there during my lifetime.

That gravitational black hole has now moved from Beirut to Damascus. It’s fascinating to watch. And few are covering the Syrian war better than Michael Weiss at NOW Lebanon.

It’s been edifying to...

Israel Bombs Syria, Syrians Blame Each Other

An extraordinary mushroom cloud appeared atop Mount Qasioun overlooking Damascus this weekend when the Israeli Air Force bombed munitions depots believed to be storing chemical weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is not the first time since Syria’s civil war broke out that Israel has intervened to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and it probably won’t be the last.

Initially both Hezbollah and the Syrian government denied the attack even took place. That’s...

Has Fascism Landed in Hungary?

The UK’s New Statesman says Hungary, despite its location in the middle of Europe, is no longer a democracy.

I spent a few hours in Budapest once, interviewed no one, and only lingered long enough to get a sense of what the city looks like and how startlingly bizarre the language is, so I’m not even in the same time zone as an expert. But the internal goings-on there have been at the outer limits of my awareness for years, and the place really has been getting increasingly creepy.

The New State...

Ron Paul's Dictator Fan Club

Ron Paul is back. Earlier this month, after retiring from Congress where he represented the 14th Congressional District in Texas as a Republican, he founded the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. It sounds like a nice little institute, but as James Kirchick shows in The Daily Beast, it's actually more like a dictator fan club.

Take a look at the advisory board. Some of Paul’s staff are respectable figures, but Flynt Leverett is there, too. So is his wife Hillary. This team has made c...