"Little Sparta." That's the term invoked by retired Marine Gen. James Mattis when speaking of the United Arab Emirates, a Gulf state whose close security ties with the U.S. were the subject of an expose last week in The Washington Post. And according to my colleague Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Mattis is not the only U.S. military official who favorably compares the emirate to the ancient Greek city-state. Read full article