Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 59

Quote of the Day

“The rhetoric of violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by drones may be a luxury for those who enjoy the comforts of the big cities of Pakistan but it only extracts a wounded smile from the face of a tribesman.” – Law professor Muhammad Zubair in Pakistan’s Daily Times.

On the Turkish-Syrian Border

Michael Weiss spent a day in a Syrian refugee camp just barely on the other side of the Turkish border and he wrote a two-part dispatch for NOW Lebanon.

Khalid was the youngest, dressed as if he were ready for a night of clubbing in Cyprus: acid-washed jeans and a fitted knit shirt patterned with soft-colored Tetris geometry. He had blue eyes and light skin, his hair was gelled, and his chin was lined with a few days’ of scruff worthy of an aspiring bassist. Like almost everyone I’d meet that...

Armin Rosen on Israel Derangement Syndrome

My colleage and sometimes traveling companion Armin Rosen covers some of the same ground I recently did, only from a slightly different angle, in his new piece for Jewcy about Tunisia’s Israel Derangement Syndrome.

Armin and I both like Tunisia in general, but we’re not going to lie and pretend it doesn’t have the problems that it clearly has.

Where the Arab Spring Began

“Are you Zionists?”

My colleague Armin Rosen and I were supposed to be conducting the interview. Instead, we were put on the defensive before we could even ask our first question.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Nope,” Armin said. “I don’t have a Zionist bone in my body.”

We were at the headquarters for the UGGT, Tunisia’s biggest labor union, in the small city of Kasserine just down the road from Sidi Bouzid where the revolution—and the region-wide Arab Spring generally—began at the tail end of 2010 w...

A Faded, Burdened Country

Egypt, writes Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal, is “a faded, burdened country that has known many false dawns.” I never believed the uprising and palace coup that overthrew Hosni Mubarak would lead to a liberal democracy in the land of the pharoahs. I doubt Ajami did either. It isn’t what most Egyptians are yearning for, not at this time. And if most Egyptians don’t want it, who could possibly build it?

The socialists and quasi-liberals of Tahrir Square will not see one of their own rise...

Salafists Terrorize Tunisia

Hundreds of armed fanatical Salafists all but declared war on the Tunisian town of Jendouba.

"This morning, four men were arrested in connection with attacks on alcohol vendors in recent days," Interior Ministry official Lutfi al-Haydari told Reuters.

"So hundreds of Salafis attacked the security base, pelting it with rocks and petrol bombs before they were dispersed by tear gas. They also set fire to a police station and attacked three shops in the town ... they are now in the centre of town a...

Egypt's Deep State

Egyptians have just finished voting for a new president. This is the first time in thousands of years of history that they have done so without knowing in advance who would win.

We still don’t know who won. The ballots haven’t been counted. (I assume, as do most analysts, that ballots really are being counted.) Since Islamists won two-thirds of the parliamentary vote last year, it’s safe to assume that whoever wins this will also be an Islamist, but we’ll see.

Either way, it’s not terribly like...

Egypt's Presidential Front-Runner is a 9/11 "Truther"

Egyptian presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly of the Muslim Brotherhood and the current front-runner in the polls, is a 9/11 “truther.”

“It was too big an operation,” he said in an interview with Eric Trager. “They [the United States] didn’t bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it’s part of a conspiracy.”

Big surprise, right?

Well, I’m not surprised. Not in the least.

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Esam El-Erian said more or less the same thing...

Is Libya Long for This World?

The Libyan city of Benghazi, the “capital” of the east and the second largest city in the country, held a referendum this past weekend on whether or not to declare political autonomy. The results aren’t in yet, but it’s likely to pass.

Muammar Qaddafi knew if an uprising against him were to break out that it would start in Benghazi. His regime never had much support in the east. His family was from the west, which to the people of Benghazi practically made him a foreigner.

Libya doesn’t make mu...

The Woman Who Blew Up the Arab World

“Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”
– Mathematician and chaos theorist Edward Lorenz

On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot and killed Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in the streets of Sarajevo—a fateful act that triggered a series of events culminating in the First World War.

Ninety-six years later, on December 17, 2010, an impoverished Tunisian fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of city hall in the small town of Sidi Bouzid—a...