Orwell Never Falls Out of Style
Every year my students struggle to express themselves clearly, and every year they make a lot of the same mistakes: the same mistakes that George Orwell decried in his essay about the (ab)use of the...
View ArticleEngaging With Terrorists?
My students at Columbia are investigating American policy toward terrorist-designated non-state actors. They’re talking to American policy-makers, analysts and diplomats about Washington’s approach to...
View ArticleIran’s Greens in New York
This coming Saturday, April 17, a group of new generation Iranian activists is gathering at Columbia University for a public forum that intends, ambitiously, to reinvigorate the Iranian Green movement....
View ArticleOne way Afghanistan could end up in a handbasket
This week, my graduate students at the New School ran a simulation of the coming year in Afghanistan. I kept the parameters loose and tracked the scenario closely to reality. (I’ve attached a list of...
View ArticleA new brain trust for the Middle East
PABLO AMARGO FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE [Originally published in The Boston Globe Ideas section.] BEIRUT—In any American university, what the six researchers in this room are doing would be totally...
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