The National Intelligence Council looks in the crystal ball at the year 2030. But its vision of Israel and the Middle East is occluded.
Tag: Elie Kedourie
Policy and the academy
"Scholars on the Sidelines" is the headline of an op-ed by Harvard's Joseph Nye in Monday's Washington Post. There he notes that the Obama administration has appointed few political scientists to top positions, and predicts a widening of the divide between policymaking and academic theorizing. His Harvard colleague Stephen Walt has echoed the complaint, placing …
When I last saw Gaza
The Israeli "disengagement" from Gaza stirs my memory of my only visit to the place. It was twenty-two years ago, before the words intifada, Hamas, and "Oslo" had entered the Israeli-Palestinian lexicon. I had taken up my appointment at Tel Aviv University a couple of years earlier, and we had a treat that semester: the …
Those boring Arabs
Every so often, I take one of the works of the late Elie Kedourie off the shelf to refresh myself, and I never fail to find some pertinent passage that speaks directly to the present. Today I came across this one, a few lines of which I vaguely remembered, and which I hope to remember …
Saddam in Court: Who’s on Trial?
With Saddam in U.S. hands, thoughts turn to his future trial. Various pundits have claimed that it won't be enough to examine Saddam's crimes. It will also be necessary to probe U.S. and Western support for his regime, during the decade of the Iran-Iraq war and the lead-up to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The …
On Entering Basra and Baghdad, Avoid This Mistake
As war against Saddam looms, military planners should read a very pertinent article by the late Elie Kedourie. Its title: "The Sack of Basra and the Baghdad Farhud." It's the story of how not to occupy Iraq's two principal cities. In 1941, the British sent forces into Iraq to remove a pro-Axis military junta from …
Continue reading On Entering Basra and Baghdad, Avoid This Mistake
Where have all the Iraq experts gone? Long time passing
As the United States moves toward a war to remove Saddam Hussein, we will experience many moments of deja vu. Whether we are any the wiser remains to be seen, but we are certainly poorer. That's because two scholars who spoke great truths about Iraq are no longer with us. Elie Kedourie was born in …
Continue reading Where have all the Iraq experts gone? Long time passing
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