Greetings!

So let's get this show on the road!

Firstly, who am I? I want to retain a modicum of anonymity on the blog, so without giving too much away, I'm a student of history and politics living in London at the moment, with an aim to progress into postgraduate study in the history and politics of the Middle East. As such, the focus of this blog is going to be on the following issues:

- Middle East politics and history in general.
- The Israel-Palestine conflict.
- The broader war on terror.
- The war for Central Asia (Afghanistan/Pakistan and beyond)
- The war in Iraq.
- Islamist and jihadist extremism.
- Terrorism.
- US and UK foreign policy in the region.

Since I have an overinflated ego and often believe that people are far more interested in the things I have to say than they probably are in reality, the scope of this blog will probably not be confined to the above issues. I will probably also end up posting fairly regularly about the following issues which are important to me:

- Atheism and religion.
- Feminism and women's rights around the world.
- LGBT issues.
- Internal US and UK politics.
- Racism (especially anti-Muslim bigotry (I refuse to recognize the term 'Islamophobia' as a useful term, 'anti-Muslim bigot' is much more accurate for the issues I will be posting about) and anti-Semitism, for obvious reason).
- Movies.
- Anything else I might fancy inflicting on the handful of people who might ever be unfortunate enough to read this blog!

While I start writing up some ideas for posts I've had floating around in my head, what better way to celebrate the launch of this blog than with the amazing video by Tamer Shaaban celebrating the courageous actions of the Egyptian people in standing up to autocracy and proving to the world that the "Western-backed dictator or Islamist extremist regime" dichotomy is a false one.