Copyright 2012 Daniel Pipes Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:23:22 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Daniel Pipes :: Writings http://www.danielpipes.org daniel.pipes@gmail.com (Daniel Pipes) webmaster@danielpipes.org en-us http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/embassy-baghdad-in-decline Wed, 8 Feb 2012 13:58:46 EST Ever since the U.S. government announced in March 2004 plans to build "the largest embassy ever run by any country," I have been on the case, poking fun at its over-wrought size (21 acres), excessive expense (US$750 million), and gargantuan personnel http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/blame-un-power-on-george-h-w-bush Tue, 7 Feb 2012 23:23:30 EST If Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor were the naïfs who foisted the United Nations on the world, George H. W. Bush was responsible for its revival as a political force. From about 1950 to 1990, the United Nations Security Council was essentially http://www.danielpipes.org/10630/kastelorizo Tue, 7 Feb 2012 17:34:05 EST Remember the name Kastelorizo; you heard it here first. It is the far-flung, easternmost island of Greece, 80 miles from Rhodes, 170 miles west of Cyprus, but just 1 mile off the coast of Turkey. Kastelorizo (in Greek, Καστελόριζο; or officially Megisti, http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/are-egypt-islamists-heading-for-a-fall Sat, 4 Feb 2012 13:05:48 EST Terrified of the secular/modern/liberal demonstrators who made their presence known in Tahrir Square, as well as of the soccer hooligans, Mohamed Tantawi and Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces have forged a mutually beneficial relationship with http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/panetta-predicts-an-israeli-strike-on-iran Sat, 4 Feb 2012 11:22:57 EST It's not every day that someone like the U.S. secretary of defense forecasts an ally's move but this just happened when Leon Panetta said that he believes, in the paraphrase of a Washington Post reporter, that "there is a strong likelihood that Israel http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/the-middle-east-forum-strategy-not-advocacy Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:49:28 EST Given the many excellent organizations dealing with Middle Eastern and Islamic issues, what niches does the Middle East Forum's fill? We provide strategic counsel, as opposed to advocacy or apologetics. To understand what this means, look at the http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/09/agreeing-with-rudy-giuliani Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:42:26 EST My disagreements with the Bush policies parallel those of Rudy Giuliani. His new Foreign Affairs article, "Toward a Realistic Peace," breaks dramatically with current policies on a number of issues, and especially vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict: Too http://www.danielpipes.org/10562/syria-claim-to-lebanon Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:33:59 EST What does the Syrian government want in Lebanon? Some highly-placed observers in the American government are sanguine about its ambitions there. Richard Murphy, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, told Congress in http://www.danielpipes.org/10561/arabs-criticize-illogic-tyranny Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:19:57 EST In the initial years after political independence, Arab opinion leaders shied away from public criticism of their governments, fearing that anyone unsympathetic would seize upon their words and use them to discredit Arabic-speaking peoples. To a certain http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/07/muslims-to-westerners-get-tougher-on-islamists Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:52:32 EST Muslim-majority countries may be the main source of terrorism, but the leaders of these states generally take a harder line against their Islamists in opposition than do their Western counterparts. This makes sense, for (1) all this is quite new to http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/anarchy-the-new-threat Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:44:12 EST The scourge of the twentieth century was overly-powerful governments; could the looming problem of this century be too-weak governments? The political scientist R. J. Rummel estimates, in his evocatively titled study, Death by Government (New Brunswick, http://www.danielpipes.org/10548/egypt-electoral-fraud Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:48:12 EST When Egypt's Lower House convened on Jan. 23, Islamists held 360 out of its 498 seats, or 72 percent. This astounding figure, however, reflects less the country's public opinion than it does a ploy by the ruling military leadership to remain in power. In http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/will-no-interest-banking-undo-turkey-economy Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:41:50 EST That's the thesis implicit to David Goldman's analysis at "Recall notice for the Turkish model." After dubbing the Turkish economy a bubble that "is bursting, starting with the stock market and national currency," he makes this observation about the http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/01/egyptian-nuclear-power-plant-ransacked Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:45:57 EST Egypt Independent reports on vandalizing, looting, and fighting at the nuclear power plant being built at El-Dabaa, a town in the desert to the west of Alexandria. The account draws on an unnamed source at the Ministry of Electricity and Energy who http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2009/11/turkey-out-of-nato-other-voices Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:40:36 EST I raised the issue of Turkey's continued membership in NATO in April 2009 at "Does Turkey Still Belong in NATO?"; here I will collect others who agree that the issue at least needs to be raised.David Schenker, Washington Institute for Near East Policy,