Revolution!

It's really exciting to watch the news about the Middle East right now, but Twitter is really the place to be. Some suggestions for people to follow/watch with the best news and updates:

@monaeltahawy - Mona Eltahawy, Egyptian columnist and blogger (http://www.monaeltahawy.com/blog/)

@shadihamid - Shadi Hamid, Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center

@sandmonkey - Mahmoud Salem, blogger

@SultanAlQassemi - Sultan alQassemi, commentator on Arab affairs from the National

@abuaardvark - Mark Lynch, Foreign Policy

@weddady - Nasser Weddady, Middle Eastern civil rights activist (http://dekhnstan.wordpress.com/)

@AJEnglish - Al Jazeera in English, lots of good tweets!

And for some humor: @alqaeda "Working to expel the infidels..."

Inforum Event With Resa Aslan

Here's an INFORUM event I did recently with Reza Aslan, Wajahat Ali and Najva Sol at SF's Commonwealth Club. We're "bridging the Middle East and America through culture".

What Goes Around...May Come Back to Shake Your Hand

If I may paint a sweeping, if somewhat general picture to illustrate a developing twist: in the 80s, we paid a bunch of mujahideen to fight our proxy war against Russia. 

We paid them to humiliate and destroy the Russians, which they did. 

But lo and behold, in this century our mujahideen have come to the full fruition of their radicalism

Oops -- what's that, an Iphone?? Jeez. Mullah Zaif, you really shouldn't.


Anyway, the full fruition of their radicalism: 

(moderates must be)..."fought and toppled"

So full that they were able to export the violence right to our teeming shore

At which point we went in to crush them, sort of -- and now, yes today, who do we turn for assistance in that crushing? Why....

Russia!

"In their first ever joint operation in October, Russian and American forces crushed a huge amount of poppy plantations in Afghanistan. This was the first time, since their ouster, that Russian forces stepped on Afghan soil. In another supportive gesture at Lisbon summit of NATO, Russia has allowed transit of armored NATO vehicles from its territory, apart from transportation of food and fuel." (quote here.)


Grandma, if you could come back from the grave to see this, you'd think that the politics of your lifetime were just a historical blip. And I know what you'd say: 


Good grief, they went to war with the poppies? 

Just kidding. You'd say: My goodness, what's next!

Very Nice!!!

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