My attempts to finish my new book Enemies of the Caliphs: Jihad and Islamic Counterinsurgency, 12th-20th Centuries have been stymied recently by the low-grade “walking” pneumonia which I somehow contracted last month. But I have been able, between coughing fits, to do some analysis for two different radio stations: KFUO AM 850, St. Louis and KNUS 710 AM, Denver.  The former is the flagship station for my own denomination, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and it produces “World Lutheran News Digest” on which I appeared discussing, at length, the historical and theological ramifications of President Trump’s decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.  The latter is home to the inestimable Peter Boyles, for whom I have become something of a regular guest.  Peter has had me on four times in the last three weeks: once to cover the latest elections in Iraq and the powerful showing of Muqtada al-Sadr; and thrice–May 31, June 4, and June 6–to speculate on the abrupt disappearance from the world stage of Muhammad bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Thanks for your prayers as I wait for the steroids and antibiotics to restore my lungs to normal, God willing.  That (mainly) Ottoman COIN book isn’t writing itself.