Making Perfunctory Preparations for Combat in Anti-American Cleric’s Stronghold - New York Times: "BAGHDAD — The two Mahdi Army fighters shuffled across the sidewalk, dragging two heavy artillery shells that they laid horizontally in the middle of the Sadr City highway, placing them tip to end like rusting batteries in a pocket flashlight."
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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