Happy Birthday to Bill Daily, 86. Of course I'm a big Bill Daily fan; you knew that, right?
The good stuff seems to have more political scientists and a lot more Syria than usual:
1. Molly Jackman on discharge petitions -- and the immigration bill.
2. James Fearon on Syria.
3. Deborah Avant on Syria.
4. I already linked to this one at the other place, but it helped my thinking a lot so I'll repeat it here: Charli Carpenter on Syria.
5. And Dan Drezner's "Shatners." Unfair! To Kirk, that is. On content...I'm skeptical that there isn't something worse than the last one on his list, the Somalia misadventure.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Who among us does not love Bill Daily?
ReplyDeleteGood Syria stuff. The Obama administration may have painted itself into a corner with its "just send a message" rhetoric after the "red line" comments. Not sure if they have any good options fitting both those requirements.
ReplyDeleteA gedanken experiment on Syria. Suppose the US and its allies wind down the rhetoric and announce loudly that Assad will not be challenged. However, the US and allies will accept up to a million refugees as immigrants from Syria a year, for at least a decade. This gets 10 million people who really dislike Assad out from under his thumb, ideally with some share of their wealth. Syria's population falls from an estimated 22 million people to about half that -- presumably all of whom are reconciled to or even happy about being ruled by Assad.
ReplyDeleteThe emigrants gain. The nations receiving these motivated new citizens gain. Assad, in some sense, gains. But Syria becomes a much smaller and less wealthy nation, with much less capability to be a trouble maker in the Middle East.