Mexico: WRM on Peña Nieto's path forward. Via Meadia: 'Enrique Peña Nieto’s victory in this week’s presidential election in Mexico is a big one for Mexico, and not only because it means the return of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power. It also means new (or perhaps a return to the old, pre-Calderón) policies towards the country’s out-of-control drug trade. ...'
Iraq: Suicide bomber kills 3 in Mosul. 'At least three people were killed and 15 wounded on Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a barber's shop popular with police in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police and hospital sources said. ...'
Interview: MJT and Rick Francona on Middle East, Bosnia. Michael Totten interviews Rick Francona on the occasion of Francona's new book 'Chasing Demons: My Hunt for War Criminals in Bosnia'.
MJT: Did you learn anything in Bosnia that applies to the Middle East?
Rick Francona: Perhaps it’s the other way around. When I arrived in Bosnia with no real background in the Balkans other than the briefings on the mission and operation, I felt really unprepared. After I was there a few days, I noticed a lot of similarities in the basic divisions in the population. In Bosnia, the major division of course was between the Orthodox Serbs and the Muslim Bosniaks, sort of like in Lebanon, although without nearly as many factions.
As in the Middle East, I realized that once someone on either side injects religion into the argument, you might as well stop talking. ...
