Share the View: Inside Iraq's Iranian-Backed Militias

Share The View

THE LATEST OPINIONS FROM BLOOMBERG VIEW

FEBRUARY 5, 2015 bloombergview.com

DECLASSIFIED Eli Lake: "On the bank of a canal across from a row of gated homes in the Iraqi village of Sinsil, a group of volunteers with the Badr Organization psych themselves up for battle with Islamic State." They follow Ali al-Sistani, "the grand ayatollah of the Shiite faith, who resides in Najaf, Iraq. And the symbolism is telling that these warriors pledge their allegiance to him rather than the fracturing multi-ethnic state being governed out of Baghdad." Read more... HEALTH Megan McArdle: "Like many people on the Internet these days, I feel pretty strongly about vaccination: I'm for it. So how to convince anti-vaccine parents that vaccination is in the best interests of their child and society?" Read more... EUROPEAN ECONOMY Clive Crook: "Don't be overly optimistic about the euro area's longer-term chances of survival. The hash that the European Union has made of this latest Greek emergency, a small and relatively tractable issue, tells you those chances aren't good." Read more... TECH Katie Benner: "Satya Nadella is celebrating his first anniversary as Microsoft's chief executive officer, and the last year has offered a tale of two companies." Read more... WORK Christopher Flavelle: "President Barack Obama's push to mandate paid sick leave generates two types of pushback. The first is a philosophical question about how much government interference is appropriate in the workplace. ... The second type of resistance is different, because it revolves around the effects of such a law." Read more... FOOD Leonid Bershidsky: "The Golden Arches have become shorthand for global uniformity. Only the absence of a McDonald's makes a country stand out. This is a bad place to be." Read more... LATIN AMERICA Mac Margolis: "Water is to Brazilian politicians what oil is to Latin American petrocrats -- just a pipeline away, too abundant to fret over. Except when it's not." Read more... POLITICS Jonathan Bernstein: "The reason the hawks are as firmly in control as ever in the Republican Party isn't a result of the 'international stage turning more dangerous.' It's because the U.S. is closer to peace than it has been in years." Read more... CURRENCY Bershidsky: "The worst-performing currency in the world so far this year is called the ruble, but it's not Russian." Read more...