Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 55

Morsi Purges Tantawi

Egypt’s new president Mohamed Morsi just purged Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and several other military leaders who have been ruling the country since Hosni Mubarak was thrown out of the palace. He also voided a law that stripped his office of power that the now-ousted rulers had recently passed.

One of two things just happened, and I don’t yet know which. Egypt has begun the transition in earnest from a military dictatorship to a land ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, or Morsi has set himself up to...

"A Writhing Ghost of a Would-Be Nation"

Robert D. Kaplan has a knack for predicting geopolitical upheavals long before they occur, and he sent me an article he wrote for The Atlantic in 1993 where he did it again. This piece, called “Syria: Identity Crisis,” is a must-read.

His 1993 analysis of where Syria is likely heading largely lines up with my own in 2012. He starts by first explaining how Syria got the way it is now.

Syria—whose population, like Lebanon's, is a hodgepodge of feuding Middle Eastern minorities—has always been mor...

WHERE THE WEST ENDS is now available

My new book, Where the West Ends, is now available. You can get a trade paperback copy from Amazon
for 19.99, and if you have a Kindle or Amazon-compatible e-reader device you can get the electronic version for only 9.99.

Your Books Have Shipped

Everyone who lives in the United States and who pre-ordered an autographed copy of my new book, Where the West Ends, should get it this week. I signed and shipped all of them over the weekend, and aside from a couple of large orders, they all went out Priority Mail.

Those of you who live outside the United States will have to wait a little bit longer, depending in part on your distance from the U.S. and also on the efficiency of your local postal system.

If you enjoy the book, please don’t hesi...

Hezbollah in Trouble

Most of Hezbollah’s official allies in Lebanon are bribed and bullied into supporting it. The principal bullying instrument lately has been the Syrian car bomb. So if the Assad regime is pulled down in Damascus, expect a great deal of Hezbollah’s local support to simply evaporate.

It’s already starting to happen even while Assad is still standing.

Here is Amir Taheri:

In his Army Day speech, President Michel Suleiman, an ex- general, rejected all three pillars of Hezbollah’s discourse:

* Hezbolla...

Kofi Annan Resigns

UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan has resigned from his role as the Quixotic would-be peacemaker in Syria.

There was never any chance that he could broker a durable cease-fire and peaceful transfer of power. A man like him can be effective if two sides in a conflict are tired of fighting and want to negotiate in good faith with each other, but blood-soaked totalitarians in a struggle for their very survival will never go for Dr. Phil-style solutions.

The war in Syria won’t end until one side is utter...

Mrs. Assad Duped Her

Last year Vogue published an article about Asma al-Assad, the wife of the tyrant of Syria, called “A Rose in the Desert.” It was written by Joan Juliet Buck and was quite possibly the worst piece of journalism I’ve ever read. The piece is so horrendous that Vogue actually scrubbed it from the Web site.

If you missed it or want to re-read it, however, you can still find it at www.presidentassad.net.

God help me if I ever willingly make myself such a tool. Assad has hit the trifecta—he’s a totali...

The Books Have Arrived

An enormous shipment of copies of my new book, Where the West Ends, has arrived at my house, so those of you who pre-ordered autographed copies should get them shortly. It will take me a few days to process, sign, and ship them, but you paid good money so it’s my top priority.

If you missed the deadline for an autographed copy, you’ll be able to pick one up from Amazon soon. A Kindle version will also be available.

The Syrian War Gets Even Uglier

The war in Syria continues to get even uglier. As Neal MacFarqhuar reports in the New York Times, more and more foreign jihadists are sneaking into the country each day.

The past few months have witnessed the emergence of larger, more organized and better armed Syrian militant organizations pushing an agenda based on jihad, the concept that they have a divine mandate to fight. Even less-zealous resistance groups are adopting a pronounced Islamic aura because it attracts more financing.

[…]

Fight...

Status of Autographed Copies

Those of you who ordered autographed copies of my new book, Where the West Ends, shouldn’t have to wait too much longer. I placed the order for the books a week ago, but I ordered a lot of them so it’s taking a while to have them processed and shipped to me. They should arrive at my house shortly, though, and when they do I will sign and ship them immediately to you by Priority Mail.