Marx's observation, proffered in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, about history repeating itself first as tragedy, then as farce, has been regurgitated so often that one feels a sheep-like silliness in reciting it again. But that's the thing about transcendent quotes: there are times when no other words capture the nature of the moment as arrestingly.

This dog-eared insight of Highgate Cemetery's most famous resident came to mind while I was reading about Al Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper that was the subject of a New York Times report this week. Al Akhbar's editorial line is unabashedly leftist. Its editor sits under a framed portrait of Marx himself. The paper's support of gay rights and women's rights makes it, in the words of the Times headline, "a rarity" in a media environment dominated by Saudi-funded platforms that slavishly follow the imperatives of the conservative Arab regimes.

At the same time, Al Akhbar enthusiastically bills Hezbollah as a resistance movement. Its editors laud the late Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh as "Our Che." If there is a Lebanese address for the red-green alliance of leftists...More >>

If one were to accept the insistence of disgraced former UK MP George Galloway and his supporters, one would assume that Galloway is a peace activist; that Galloway desires and cherishes peace.

This would be a grave error. Recent statements given by Galloway during a visit to Edmonton seem to show he isn't that interested in a genuine peace, so much as a one-sided war.

In Edmonton, Galloway spoke to the recent revelations implicating in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“We are told this crime was committed by the Lebanese resistance,” Galloway told his audience. “And we’re told it with the same certainty, by the same people who told us so certainly that Syria had been responsible for this. And we’re supposed to believe it.”

Later in the NBC interview with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we see that the Islamic Republic's view of the American political system actually has much in common with the old Shah's Iran. Here's the current president of Iran:

Is he able to do everything he wishes to? Personally, it's not true. There are different political group, there are a lo-- different lobbyist pressure groups, and more important, there are Zionists there. We say, if he wants to do something, there are certain groups who do not allow him to do so. We think-- President Obama had a lot of good opportunities. For example, including the nuclear swap. Last year, during my visit to New York, I said I am ready to have a debate with President Obama-- in the presence of the media. That was another opportunity. We said in Afghanistan and in Iraq, we can cooperate for the enhancement and improvement of security and democracy. President Obama in his speeches, said he's interested to do so, and to engage in such cooperation. But nothing has yet happened with regard to special position. We think pressure groups do not let him go ahead.

Perhaps you've already seen the classic Mike...More >>