Karzai’s Paranoid World
Christina Lamb is Washington bureau chief of the London Sunday Times and has been covering Afghanistan and Pakistan for 22 years. She has been named Britain's foreign correspondent of the year five times. Her books include Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage through Afghanistan (Harper Collins).
As Afghanistan's president is inaugurated for his second term, author Christina Lamb, his former neighbor, on his transformation from an affable bon vivant to a paranoid shut-in.
The Best of Brit Lit
Peter Stothard is editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was editor of The Times of London from 1992-2002. He is the author of Thirty Days, a Downing Street diary of his time with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war and On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy will be published in January.
A look at great reads from the editor of the Times Literary Supplement. This week: the books soldiers take to war, how the French resistance was paid for, and what makes good music.
Is Iraq Shifting to Iran?
Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa and the Mediterranean.
In removing the Taliban and Saddam, the Bush administration effectively elevated Iran to regional superpower-and left Sunnis worried that Iraq would become an Iranian colony. But Gary Sick sees a different shift in the region.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast's Chief Investigative Reporter. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
