Grotesque Mummy Head Reveals Advanced Medieval Science. By Stephanie Pappas.

Grotesque Mummy Head Reveals Advanced Medieval Science. By Stephanie Pappas. LiveScience, March 5, 2013. Also find it here.

What Does This Head From the Thirteenth Century Tell Us About Medieval Medicine. Smithsonian, March 6, 2013.

The not-so-Dark Ages: Mummified head from1200 AD reveals enlightened doctors were more advanced than previously thought. By Emma Innes. Daily Mail, March 6, 2013.

Meet Philippe Charlier, The Forensic Scientist Who Thinks A Medieval Cadaver Smells Good. By Francie Diep. Popular Science, February 28, 2013.

After Liberté and Égalité, It’s Autopsie. By Elaine Sciolino. New York Times, July 6, 2012.

A glimpse into the early origins of medieval anatomy through the oldest conserved human dissection (Western Europe,13th c. A.D.). By Philippe Charlier et al. Archives of Medical Science, published in advance online, February 28, 2013. Full Text. PDF. Also find it here.

Abstract:

Introduction: Medieval autopsy practice is very poorly known in Western Europe, due to a lack of both descriptive medico-surgical texts and conserved dissected human remains. This period is currently considered the dark ages according to a common belief of systematic opposition of Christian religious authorities to the opening of human cadavers.

Material and methods: The identification in a private collection of an autopsied human individual dated from the 13th century A.D. is an opportunity for better knowledge of such practice in this chrono-cultural context, i.e. the early origins of occidental dissections. A complete forensic anthropological procedure was carried out, completed by radiological and elemental analyses.

Results: The complete procedure of this body opening and internal organs exploration is explained, and compared with historical data about forensic and anatomical autopsies from this period. During the analysis, a red substance filling all arterial cavities, made of mercury sulfide (cinnabar) mixed with vegetal oil (oleic and palmitic acids) was identified; it was presumably used to highlight vascularization by coloring in red such vessels, and help in the preservation of the body.

Conclusions: Of particular interest for the description of early medical and anatomical knowledge, this “human preparation” is the oldest known yet, and is particularly important for the fields of history of medicine, surgery and anatomical practice.



This anatomical specimen dating to the 1200s is the oldest known in Europe.

 Archives of Medical Science.

Bill O’Reilly Loses It on Alan Colmes in Epic Confrontation: “Give Me One Damn Program Obama Said He’d Cut!”

Bill O’Reilly Loses It on Alan Colmes in Epic Confrontation: “Give Me One Damn Program Obama Said He’d Cut!” Fox News Insider, March 6, 2013.

Bill O’Reilly to Kirsten Powers: “You Can’t Give Me One Specific on Obama’s Proposed Spending Cuts.” Fox News Insider, March 6, 2013.

The real reason President Obama is not trying to solve the fiscal chaos. By Bill O'Reilly. Talking Points Memo. The O’Reilly Factor, March 5, 2013.

Enough! By Bill O'Reilly. Talking Points Memo. The O’Reilly Factor, March 6, 2013.

A Biblical Warning Against Statism.

The prophet Samuel furiously chastises King Saul for failing to heed God’s order to destroy all the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3). The American artist John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) in Saul Reproved by Samuel for not Obeying the Commandments of the Lord (1798) depicts Saul, rejected by Samuel for having spared the life of the Amalekite king Agag, holding onto the prophet’s robe and pleading for forgiveness. When the robe tears, Samuel says, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this very day. . . .” (1 Samuel 15:28). Copley is famous for painting portraits of American revolutionary figures like Samuel Adams.

The Prophet Samuel’s Denunciation of Monarchy (The “Rule of the King”).
1 Samuel 8: 1-22 (New Revised Standard Version).

When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. Yet his sons did not follow in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plough his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.’ When Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and set a king over them.” Samuel then said to the people of Israel, “Each of you return home.”


Robert Alter’s translation and commentary. The David Story. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999, pp. 41-45.

Reenactment of 1 Samuel 8 in the miniseries The Bible. History Channel, March 10, 2013. YouTube. Also find it here.

Samuel’s Denunciation of Kingship in the Light of the Akkadian Documents from Ugarit. By I. Mendelsohn. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 143 (October 1956).

Mendelsohn:

It is the general consensus of Old Testament scholars that the passage denouncing kingship in I Sam. 8:4-17 is a late document reflecting actual experience of the ways of Israelite and Judean kingship but put into the mouth of the first king-maker in order to lend to it authority. The thesis of this paper is that on the basis of the new data from Alalakh and particularly from Ugarit, dating from the 18th to the 13th century B.C., there is good reason to assume that the Samuel account is an authentic description of the semi-feudal Canaanite society as it existed prior to and during the time of Samuel and that its author could conceivably have been the prophet himself or a spokesman of the antimonarchical movement of that period.

. . . . . . . . . .

In view of the evidence from the Akkadian texts from Ugarit it seems obvious that the Samuel summary of “the manner of the king” does not constitute “a rewriting of history” by a late opponent of kingship but represents an eloquent appeal to the people by a contemporary of Saul not to impose upon themselves a Canaanite institution alien to their own way of life.


A King Like All The Nations: The Composition of I Sam 8, 11-18. By Mark Leuchter. Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Vol. 117, No. 4 (January 2006).

Abstract:

Scholars are typically divided over Samuel’s denunciation of kingship in I Sam 8,11–18 (“Rule of the King”) generally categorizing it as contemporaneous with the 11th century prophet or viewing it as an exilic or post-exilic criticism of Israelite kingship. Both of these readings, however, are problematic, and necessitate a re-evaluation of the passage. A careful comparison with records from the royal archives of Assyria in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, coupled with an analysis of lexical patterns within the Biblical passage itself, suggests that I Sam 8,11–18 constitutes a Josianic-era meditation on Israel’s experience with the neo-Assyrian monarchs. When viewed in tandem with I Sam 12, the Rule of the King contrasts non-Davidic kingship with the covenantal dimensions of the Davidic line, and anticipates and legitimizes the religious and political imperatives of Josiah.


The Pre-Deuteronomistic Story of King Saul and Its Historical Significance. By Nadav Na’aman. The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 4 (October 1992).

1 Samuel 8:11-18 as “A Mirror for Princes.” By Jonathan Kaplan. Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 131, No. 4 (Winter 2012).

An Obedient Servant? The Reign of King Saul (1 Samuel 13-15) Reassessed. By Dawn Maria Sellars. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol. 35, No. 3 (March 2011).

Hobbes and the prophet Samuel on leviathan government. By Arye L. Hillman. Public Choice, Vol. 141, No. 1/2 (October 2009). With responses.

George Washington: American Moses. By Robert P. Hay. American Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter 1969).

The “divine right of republics”: Hebraic Republicanism and the Debate over Kingless Government in Revolutionary America. By Nathan R. Perl-Rosenthal. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 66, No. 3 (July 2009).

The Bible in the Political Rhetoric of the American Founding. By Daniel L. Dreisbach. Religion and Politics, Vol. 4, No. 3 (December 2011).

“A Perfect Republic”: The Mosaic Constitution in Revolutionary New England, 1775–1788. By Eran Shalev. The New England Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2 (June 2009).

The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States. By Samuel Langdon. Concord, New Hampshire, June 5, 1788. Online Library of Liberty. Also find it here.

A Sermon on the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution. By Samuel Cooper. Boston, October 25, 1780. Online Library of Liberty. Also find it here.

Cooper:

Such was the civil constitution of the Hebrew nation, till growing weary of the gift of heaven, they demanded a king. After being admonished by the prophet Samuel of the ingratitude and folly of their request, they were punished in the grant of it. Impiety, corruption and disorder of every kind afterwards increasing among them, they grew ripe for the judgments of heaven in their desolation and captivity. Taught by these judgments the value of those blessings they had before despised, and groaning under the hand of tyranny more heavy than that of death, they felt the worth of their former civil and religious privileges, and were prepared to receive with gratitude and joy a restoration not barely to the land flowing with milk and honey, but to the most precious advantage they ever enjoyed in that land, their original constitution of government: They were prepared to welcome with the voice of mirth and thanksgiving the re-establishment of their congregations; nobles chosen from among themselves, and a governor proceeding from the midst of them.


Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession. From Common Sense. By Thomas Paine. Online Library of Liberty. Also find it here.

Paine:

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty as declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by Kings. All anti-monarchical parts of scripture, have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form.

. . . . . . . . . .

1 Samuel 8 with Paine’s embedded commentary:

The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were intrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all the other nations. And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i. e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory lay in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a King to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other Gods: so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the King that shall reign over them, i. e. not of any particular King, but the general manner of the Kings of the earth whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a King. And he said, This shall be the manner of the King that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers (this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of Kings) and he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favouritism, are the standing vices of Kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work: and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY. This accounts for the continuation of Monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a King, but only as a Man after God’s own heart. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which was then a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING. These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government.

The Professors’ Big Stage. By Thomas L. Friedman.

The Professors’ Big Stage. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, March 5, 2013.

Will American Telecoms Kill the Online Ed Revolution? By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia,  March 6, 2013.

New York Times Fighting the Future of Higher Education. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, February 19, 2013.

Revolution Hits the Universities. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, January 27, 2013.

The End of the University as We Know It. By Nathan Harden. The American Interest, January/February 2013.

Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? By Robert Nozick.

Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? By Robert Nozick. Cato Institute, January 1, 1998.

Michelle Obama and John Kerry to Honor Samira Ibrahim, Anti-Semite and 9/11 Fan. By Samuel Tadros.

Michelle Obama and John Kerry to Honor Anti-Semite and 9/11 Fan. By Samuel Tadros. The Weekly Standard, March 6, 2013.

Michelle Malkin Takes on State Department for Honoring Samira Ibrahim, Woman Who Praised 9/11. Fox News Insider, March 7, 2013.

Conservatism and the Racism Smear. By Peter Berkowitz.

The Flawed Case of Tying Conservatism to Racism. By Peter Berkowitz. Real Clear Politics, March 5, 2013.

College: Where Free Speech Goes to Die. By Bruce Thornton.

College: Where Free Speech Goes to Die. By Bruce Thornton. Real Clear Politics, March 4, 2013. Also find it here.

Barack Obama: A Parochial Leader for a Parochial Nation. By Fouad Ajami.

Barack Obama, a Parochial Leader for a Parochial Nation. By Fouad Ajami. Real Clear Politics, March 5, 2013.

Justice, Politics and the Poor. By Peter Wehner.

Justice, Politics and the Poor. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 5, 2013.

Republicans and Their Faulty Moral Arithmetic. By Arthur Brooks. Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2013.

Palestinians Will Never Be Satisfied With a Small Independent State. By Giora Eiland.

Palestinians will never be satisfied with a small independent state; they want revenge. By Giora Eiland. Ynet News, March 4, 2013.

Eiland:

US President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are expected to visit the region together in late March to try and promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. It is amazing to see how American policy has not changed in 20 years. Each administration creates expectations regarding a solution to the conflict without reassessing it and asking the basic question: Why have the peace efforts failed so far?

It seems that the American approach is: There is a problem (the conflict), so there must be a solution. What’s the solution? Two states. Why hasn't the solution been implemented until now? Apparently because we haven’t put enough effort into it. What’s the conclusion? We have to try harder.

This conclusion is obviously wrong. The solution has not been implemented yet because both sides don't really want it. For both sides the cost of adopting the solution is much greater than the benefit. From Israel’s perspective, the solution has two main problems: One is the great security risk involved in withdrawing to the 1967 borders, along with the possibility that the other side will not keep its promises.

Israel fears that after it withdraws Hamas, or an even worse regime, will rise to power in the West Bank and simply ignore the peace agreement. The other price is the evacuation of at least 120,000 Israelis. The political, social and economic cost would be huge. The direct compensation for the settlers alone would amount to 120 billion shekels (about $32 billion). Where would this money come from? And what about the Palestinian side?

The American assumption may sound reasonable, but it is completely false. According to this assumption, the Palestinians want to free themselves of the “occupation” and establish a small independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. The first part is true, but the second part is not. The Palestinians were never willing to make do with a small state of their own. They want “justice,” revenge, recognition as victims and above all – the “right of return.”

The Palestinians do not really want a small and divided state, and therefore are not willing to pay the price for it: A commitment to declare an end to the conflict, promising not to make any other demands in the future and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. When the desire is not genuine, there will not be a willingness on the part of the Palestinians to make “painful compromises,” which are necessary for achieving peace.

So what should be done? The Americans must take a few steps back and reexamine their basic assumptions. Most importantly, they should try to determine what is really important for the various players: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. They should also determine whether the “two states” solution is the only one. Many people believe it is a bad solution, as it has a “zero–sum game” element to it. Perhaps there are other solutions.

Should the Americans insist on the old paradigm, Israel must continue to play the game: Agree to return to the negotiation table without preconditions and recognize that the peace process is a positive thing. Will the process bring peace? Probably not, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we will not be blamed for its failure.

Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion.

Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion. By Rania Abouzeid. Time, March 5, 2013.

Apologetics, Politcs, and Our Moral Imagination. By Peter Wehner.

Apologetics, Politics, and Our Moral Imagination. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 4, 2013.

Hagel and the “Israel Lobby.” By Max Boot.

Hagel and the “Israel Lobby.” By Max Boot. Commentary, March 2, 2013.

The Global Middle Class Is Destroying Democracy. By Joshua Kurlantzick.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. By Joshua Kurlantzick. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.

To Achieve Mideast Peace, Suspend Disbelief. By Dennis B. Ross.

To Achieve Mideast Peace, Suspend Disbelief. By Dennis B. Ross. New York Times, March 2, 2013.

“Hatufim” (Prisoners of War): “Homeland” in the Holy Land. By Debra Kamin

 “Homeland” in the Holy Land. By Debra Kamin. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.

A TV thriller taps into Israel’s collective subconscious.

Prisoners of War on Hulu.

Think Again: The Pentagon. By Thomas P. M. Barnett.

Think Again: The Pentagon. By Thomas P. M. Barnett. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.

The military’s Chicken Littles want you to think the sky is falling. Don’t believe them: America has never been safer.

Barnett:

Please remember amid all this frenetic scaremongering that the Pentagon is never more frightened about our collective future than when it’s desperately uncertain about its own. Given the rising health-care costs associated with America’s aging population and the never-ending dysfunction in Washington, we should expect to be bombarded with frightening scenarios of planetary doom for the next decade or two. None of this bureaucratic chattering will bear any resemblance to global trends, which demonstrate that wars have grown increasingly infrequent, shorter in duration, and diminished in lethality. But you won’t hear that from the next-warriors on the Potomac.

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan. By Vali Nasr.

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan. By Vali Nasr. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.

But You Are the Pizza Police. By Andrew C. McCarthy

But You Are the Pizza Police. By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, March 5, 2013.

The Evolving Terror Threat. By Walter Russell Mead.

The Evolving Terror Threat. By Walter Russell Mead. Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013.

Mead:

As France announces plans to stand down in Mali and the United States builds a new drone base in neighboring Niger, the conflict formerly known as the global war on terror is spreading and intensifying. Many in Washington would like to talk about other things, but while the West might be tired of the war on terror, the war on terror isn’t tired of the West. America and its allies face an “existential threat,” as British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said, and the conflict may last for decades. So it is worth stepping back to see where matters stand.

On 9/11, it became clear that all was not well in the post-Cold War, post-historical world. The war on terror has since gone through several phases.

The first was Osama bin Laden's attempt to launch a true “clash of civilizations” between the West and the world of Islam. His strategy for achieving this goal was a series of spectacular blows against the citadels of Western power that would weaken the West and vest his movement with the prestige to draw Muslims world-wide to his banner.

Bin Laden failed. In phase two of the war, effective counterterrorism blocked his efforts to mount repeated attacks on the scale of 9/11. The war in Iraq (however misguided some consider it) forced al Qaeda in Iraq into a contest that it lost politically as much as militarily. When the chips were down, Iraq’s Sunni Muslims chose the Americans over al Qaeda.

The awakening in Iraq was part of a much larger tide of opinion among Muslims around the world: The more they saw of al Qaeda, the less they liked it, and the less they thought it had anything to do with the Islam they learned from the Quran. By the end of the George W. Bush administration, the effort to launch a grand war against the West under the flag of al Qaeda had decisively failed.

The Obama administration hoped to complete the marginalization and destruction of al Qaeda, extending Mr. Bush’s military strategy and developing a more effective political counterstrategy that would further sideline radicalism by building deeper ties between the U.S. and the moderate Muslim majority. The military strategy worked reasonably well. The campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan that included the death of bin Laden continues to degrade the capabilities and prestige of the original al Qaeda network, even if the American exit strategy from this difficult conflict remains unclear.

The political strategy to reach out to Muslims has had less success. Failed American attempts to broker a peace between Israel and Palestinians undermined many Muslims’ faith in the Obama administration’s intentions (or capacity). The Arab Spring caught the administration off balance, and Washington has struggled to maintain its priorities as the Middle East has drifted away from liberal democratic protest toward a darker agenda. American efforts to build bridges to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood have alienated Egyptian liberals without establishing strong bonds with the Islamists. The U.S. failure to support effective humanitarian intervention in Syria (even if prudent in terms of American domestic politics) has dramatically undermined the administration’s effort to portray the new U.S. as a pro-democracy, humanitarian power guided by the responsibility to protect.

Meanwhile, even a weakened and ideologically marginalized al Qaeda has found ways to assert itself as a credible and sometimes powerful force. The emerging sectarian war in the Middle East between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites makes al Qaeda’s fanatical fighters valuable once again to the powers of the Persian Gulf. The ultramilitants are emerging as significant forces on the Sunni side in Syria and Iraq, and as a result they are regaining lost credibility and access to funding from affluent sympathizers in the region. They have also found fertile ground in the weak states of North Africa.

The question that confronts the U.S. and its allies now is twofold. How to counter the explosive growth of radical jihadist organizations and networks in Libya’s post-Gadhafi vacuum and in surrounding states? And what to do about the integration of terrorist groups into the sectarian Sunni-Shiite war that spans the region and to some degree overlaps with America's own struggle to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon?

At this stage, the terrain favors America's enemies. In places like the wide swath of Africa’s Sahel region, and in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, it is difficult to establish strong states that can keep the extremists in check. The free-floating nature of the new jihadist movement also poses problems: At any given moment, from Afghanistan to Mauritania, dozens of groups are competing for funds and followers, moving swiftly in response to perceived opportunities.

Yet this is war: One side makes a move, the other counters it, and so it goes until one side finds a strategy that the other cannot overcome—or until the exhausted combatants accept a compromise peace. In the first phase of the war, al Qaeda tried to lead the world’s Muslims on a grand jihad. In the second phase the U.S. and its allies (including Muslim religious and civic leaders around the world) dealt effectively with that threat. Now al Qaeda has developed a way to remain relevant even without the broad support it once hoped for.

The fourth stage of war, one hopes, will see the U.S. and its allies once again push al Qaeda and its allies to the margins, relegating them permanently to the nuisance fringe. At present al Qaeda appears to have only a limited capacity to attack the U.S. and its principal European allies. But that could change quickly if the terrorists succeed in establishing havens in North Africa. This war isn't over, and the danger isn’t past.

Obama’s Pelosi II Strategy.

Stymied by a GOP House, Obama looks ahead to 2014 to cement his legacy. By Scott Wilson and Philip Rucker. Washington Post, March 2, 2013.

Obama’s Pelosi II Strategy. Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013.

WSJ:

Old Washington hands have been scratching their heads about the start of President Obama’s second term, with its aggressive liberal priorities and attacks on Republicans. Whatever happened to governing? Well, the answer arrived this weekend as the Washington Post reported that Mr. Obama’s real plan for the next two years is returning Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in 2014.

“The goal is to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control, allowing Obama to push forward with a progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy during his final two years in office, according to congressional Democrats, strategists and others familiar with Obama's thinking,” reports the Post, which is hardly hostile to the President.

The article says that shortly after finishing his speech on Election Night last year, Mr. Obama called Mrs. Pelosi and Steve Israel, who runs the Democratic House re-election campaign, to discuss 2014. The strategy fits Mr. Obama’s unprecedented new effort to raise $50 million in $500,000 chunks to fund Organizing for Action (OFA), which will spend millions in GOP-held districts. Mr. Israel says he met in January with Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign manager who now runs OFA, to discuss the 2014 races.

White House press secretary Jay Carney pushed back against the article on Monday, saying 2014 is “not a focus” for Mr. Obama. But that looks like an attempt at damage control after the Post blew the White House’s cover. Mr. Obama has to appear to want bipartisan deals even as he prepares the ground for blaming Republicans in 2014 when those efforts fail.

This is already clear on the budget, as Mr. Obama insists on a second tax increase that Republicans can't accept. We’re also increasingly worried about White House sabotage on immigration reform, as it pushes the bill left on a guest-worker program and enforcement. Mr. Obama is doing exactly what you’d expect if he doesn’t want a deal and plans to use the issue to drive minority turnout in 2014.

It’s important to understand how extraordinary this is. Presidents typically try to secure major bipartisan deals in their fifth or sixth years, before their political capital ebbs. That’s what Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did, and George W. Bush tried on Social Security. Mr. Obama seems to think he can use the next two years mainly to set up a Pelosi House that would let him finish his last two years with a liberal bang.

The next time you hear Mr. Obama, House Democrats or one of their media acolytes talk about GOP “obstructionism,” refer them to the Washington Post article that shows what they really intend for the current Congress. Bipartisan failure is their strategy.

Israelite Life Before the Kings. By Robert D. Miller.

Archaeological Views: Israelite Life Before the Kings. By Robert D. Miller. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March/April 2013).

The Spade and the Text: The Interaction between Archaeology and Israelite History Relating to the Tenth-Ninth Centuries BCE. By Amihai Mazar. Proceedings of the British Academy, No. 143 (2007).

Israel, Edom and Egypt in the 10th Century B.C.E. By Nadav Na’aman. Tel Aviv, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1992).

National Review Mission Statement. By William F. Buckley, Jr.

Our Mission Statement. By William F. Buckley, Jr. National Review, November 19, 1955.

Do We Need a Pro-Israel Lobby? By Martin Kramer.

Do we need a pro-Israel lobby? By Martin Kramer. Sandbox, March 4, 2013.