Daniel Benjamin comments on the state of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Here he talks about the war on Yemen: In Yemen, the Saudi campaign against the Houthi insurgents has become the signature initiative for Riyadh’s new and emboldened foreign policy. The United States has voiced hedged support for the Saudi effort — primarily an effort at alliance maintenance, which was a necessity against the backdrop of the nuclear negotiations. But behind the scenes, Washington has gnawing concerns about the Saudi war effort [bold mine-DL]. The bombing runs are killing civilians in appalling numbers, and a country that hovers on desperation has been plunged into…

Guatemala is at a historic juncture. President Otto Pérez Molina submitted his resignation on September 2 after months of protests that culminated in a nationwide strike on August 27. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the streets throughout the country. Pérez Molina is now behind bars. He faces charges of fraud, accepting bribes, and illegal association. The protests began in April, when CICIG—a United Nations commission formed to help Guatemala prosecute high-impact crimes—found that the vice president and others in Pérez Molina’s administration had been eliminating customs tariffs in exchange for bribes. This maneuver cheated the Guatemalan public out…

"I thought that when we showed up for class, someone else would be teaching it," said one of my students at the start of my class on Monday, April 7, 2014. "Really?" I asked. "Why?" "Because of that question you asked the Admiral on Friday," he answered. I looked around and saw the looks on the faces of a number of other students. They weren’t necessarily surprised that I was still in my job, but some of them did say that if they had asked the question I had asked, their careers in the military could well be over. That’s…

Probably the most important group fighting the Syrian regime now is Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of the Levant), a Salafi group fighting mainly in the north but also in central and southern Syria. Contrary to Western reports suggesting that the al-Qa‘ida-linked Nusra Front led the battle to capture the northwestern Syrian provincial capital of Idlib last March, Ahrar had more fighters in the battle—a fact demonstrated by its predominance in the subsequent military oversight council established for Idlib. Ahrar is a key force on the battlefield, but Western media allots little space to describe it beyond saying it is “hard-line”…

In the wake of the Chattanooga shooting, a dangerous suggestion appears from right and left Terrorist violence can make the previously unthinkable suddenly seem acceptable. The levels of surveillance introduced after 9/11 could have been considered reasonable only in the climate of collective panic that the attacks induced. But this week’s reaction to the fatal shooting of four Marines and a Navy petty officer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by a 24-year-old Muslim has to win the prize for the worst proposed civil liberties infringement to come out of a violent disruption. No matter how high tensions may have run after the Boston Marathon bombing or…