zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — current assessments — Iran trumps Saudi, AQ beats IS ]
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Sources:

Cambanis in Foreign Policy, Iran Is Winning the War for Dominance of the Middle East

Gartenstein-Ross & Moreng in Politico, Al Qaeda Is Beating the Islamic State\

Both are worth reading.

[ by Charles Cameron — the election itself a one day affair, and may even be settled by the time you read this — but the impact lingers, and the complex balancing of forces in the region remains ]
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Nothing is ever black-and-white, it seems to me — but there are moment of exceptional clarity, and with the Israeli election (as best I can tell from afar) still in the balance as I write this, two quotes from Herzog (upper panel, below) and Netanyahu (lower panel) strike me as encapsulating the koan facing the Israeli people:

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Still in the balance.

I was discussing the Middle East earlier in the day, an the issue of balance came up. Cheryl Rofer had said, “The big issue with KSA and Israel is balance of power” and I commented that if you throw Iran into the mix, the issue becomes one of a “balance of balances of power” — which could then be extended on out to include other interested parties.

This brought me to the idea of Alexander Calder mobiles, and the sense that they offer a kinetic equivalent to the static formalism of my own HipBone Games — their precarious balances and homeostases representing by analogy the tensions and resolutions between stakeholders and / or ideas, ideologies, approaches, in a way that features both “equilibrium and its discontents”. Fascinating.

To which Cheryl responded with gnomic accuracy:

Multibody problems are hard.

Ain’t that the truth!

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Sources:

NYT, Netanyahu Says Never to a State for Palestinians

Fathom, We must divide the land: an interview with Isaac Herzog

Mobile, Alexander Calder in Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

[by Charles Cameron — this is all way off to the side of my pay-grade — can I say that? ]
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A DoubleQuote: upper panel, Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic; lower panel, Adam Silverman at Sic Semper Tyrannis:

Silverman then quotes President Reagan, from his memoir, An American Life, p 415:

I don’t like having representatives of a foreign country – any foreign country – trying to interfere in what I regarded as our domestic political process and the setting of our foreign policy.

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Sources:

A Partial Accounting of the Damage Netanyahu Is Doing to Israel, upper panel

This Has Sort of Happened Before: Mr. Netanyahu’s Meshugana Mystery Tour, lower panel

[ by Charles Cameron — because mention of the Riyadh meeting caught me by surprise ]
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I have seen far more media attention, mass and social, paid to the White House Countering Violent Extremism confab than I have to the coalition meeting in Riyadh:

Anti-IS coalition chalks out strategy in Riyadh http://t.co/oHPGAoYIgn pic.twitter.com/JTbXrs9fm5

— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) February 19, 2015

In fact, I had to tweet that myself to get a suitable DoubleTweet to go with this one:

Full List of Arab & ME countries at #CVESummit in Washington. #Lebanon not present. #Qatar sent Ambassador. pic.twitter.com/LkTNhF8neN

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) February 19, 2015

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Is that because one is about Countering Violent Extremism and the other about Violently Countering Extremism?

Or is Riyadh just so very far away?

Which will history view as the more significant of the two?

[ by Charles Cameron — diplomacy and dispute.. ]
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One of the simplest uses of the DoubleQuotes format is to take the sting out of an accusation. Michelle Obama was recently criticized for not wearing a headscarf during the Obamas’ recent visit to Saudia Arabia:

Barbara Bush did the same…

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But of course, the gander can be cooked as easily as the goose, so a DoubleQuote can also be used to put the sting into the accusation — as when the complaint is made that the First Lady did indeed wear a headscarf in Indonesia — so why not in Saudi Arabia?

Maybe the fact that she was visiting a mosque in Indonesia has something to do with it?

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On the subject of diplomatic protocol, there’s a terrific quote about Queen Elizabeth II and the late Crown Prince Abdullah going the rounds. You’ve probably seen it, but I’m thinking of making it the opening anecdote of my upcoming book on coronation and monarchy — yup, I have an agent nibbling at the idea — so here it is, as I first encountered it in tweet form from Shashank Joshi:

Sherard Cowper-Coles' anecdote about #KingAbdullah and the Queen at Balmoral in 1998 (reminded by @Doylech): pic.twitter.com/SO9GSp2RR9

— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) January 23, 2015

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Sources:

White House photograph, Michelle Obama without scarf

GW Bush White House archive, Laura Bush

USA Today, Michelle Obama with scarf

Mother Jones, Badass Feminist Queen Elizabeth II

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And for extra points, Her Majesty the Badass Feminist in her Range Rover:

Sorry, no headscarf — you’ve already seen HM in hijab in my post Birmingham, a little light relief in tough times.