Links 9-28 February 2019

• Bolsonaro’s Brazil | LRB
  Read this masterful piece by Perry Anderson even if you know nothing about Brazil, it has insights about weak democracies and clientelist systems that are universal

• Bitch Nation | LRB
  Musab Younis on the sexual fetishization of Arab men in France

• The Otherworldliness of Ibn Khaldun | NYRB
  Malise Ruthven reviews Robert Irwin's new bio of Ibn Khaldoun

• Yemen Under Siege | NYRB
  Robert Worth reviews books by Bonnefoy, Lackner and Brandt on Yemen's catastrophe

• Is the next Arab uprising happening in plain sight? | MonkeyCage
  Marc Lynch

• Learn from the best | Synaps
  Interviews with a range of professionals who document (in various ways) the Middle East.

• Who Is Matt Duss, and Can He Take On Washington’s ‘Blob’? | The Nation
  Very interesting piece on Duss - a great guy who is a refreshing change from the usual "blob" types.

• The Manufactured Controversy About Ilhan Omar and the Israel Lobby | MERIP
  Views from Joel Beinin, Noura Erakat, Omar Baddar, and Mouin Rabbani.

• AUC Board of Trustees reaffirms confidence in university administration against faculty, student vote | Mada Masr
  Mood at AUC must be pretty nasty.

• Dividing Morocco’s Islamists and Leftists | Sada
  Maati Monjib.

• Saudi Lobbying in Brussels Gone Awry | LobeLog
  Eldar Mamedov on Riyadh's clumsy EU lobbying.

• Guilt by Association | Carnegie Middle East Center
  Yasmine Farouk on U.S. dilemmas in supporting Saudi activism.

• Judicial candidates forced to undergo unprecedented evaluations as presidency exerts further control | Mada Masr
  Randa Mostafa on the gouging of Egypt's judiciary by the executive.

• Former Air Force Intelligence Agent Charged With Spying for Iran | NYT
  Adam Goldman reports on a bizarre but remarkable story.

• What Impact Will Morocco’s Decision to Withdraw From the Anti-Houthi Coalition Have? - Carnegie Middle East Center
  Very little is the consensus, but good background here.

• What Ilhan Omar Said About AIPAC Was Right | The Nation

• POMEPS Studies 33: The Politics of Rentier States in the Gulf

• Au Tchad, l'incursion des rebelles dévoile les fragilités du pouvoir | Crisis Group

• Egypt: Tailoring Constitutions for the Ruling Military | LobeLog
  Rana Allam offers goof overview - but is this about military rule, or Sisi rule?

• Empowered decentralization: A city-based strategy for rebuilding Libya | Brookings
  US group of scholars offers a new paradigm – but many cities contested.

• Egypt: Survival Is Also a Form of Resistance | Zeit
  Wael Eskandar.

• Egypt: A Move to Enhance Authoritarian Rule | HRW
  Constitutional amendments "would undermine judicial independence and expand executive powers that are already being abused".

• Dans le Golfe, entre MBS et MBZ, un prince héritier peut en cacher un autre | Mediapart
  On MbZ - interesting stuff about his maritime strategy and prospective alliance with China.

• Algeria student's throat slit in apparent homophobic killing | al-Bab

• En Algérie, une fossilisation du pouvoir | Le Monde

• Syria’s Torture Photos: Witness to Atrocity | by Susie Linfield | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
  When it comes to the Syrian war, a “relevant political consciousness” is precisely what does not exist. 

• A Princess Vanishes. A Video Offers Alarming Clues. | NYT
  The adult daughter of Dubai’s ruler tried to escape a life of stultifying restrictions. She was captured at sea, forcibly taken back, and has not been heard from since.

• Air strikes target al-Feel oilfield in southern Libya | al-Arabiya
  After standoff over Sharara.