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state.gov
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The chances of peace in the Middle East over the next four to eight years have something to do with what Hillary Clinton is able to achieve there. We’re getting a first glimpse this week, as Clinton makes overtures to Syria, Iran and the Palestinians while trying not to threaten Israel’s BFF status.
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Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Michael J. Ayotte
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By Chris Hedges — Combat troops are to be pulled out of Iraq by August 2010, President Obama said, but some 50,000 occupation troops will remain behind. Someone should let the Iraqis know the distinction.
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AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Chris Hedges — Bibi Netanyahu’s assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran, but a stable relationship with Iran would do more to protect Israel and our interests in the Middle East.
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AP photo / Sebastian Scheiner
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By Chris Hedges — The assault on Gaza exposed not only Israel’s callous disregard for international law but the gutlessness of the American press. Nearly all reporters were, as during the buildup to the Iraq war, pliant stenographers and echo chambers.
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AP photo / Abdel Kareem Hana
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By Chris Hedges — Israel will, from now on, speak to the Palestinians in the language of death. And the language of death is all the Palestinians will be able to speak back. The slaughter—let’s stop pretending this is a war—is empowering an array of radical Islamists inside and outside of Gaza.
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AP photo / Khaled Omar
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By Robert Scheer — Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state? It is not.
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By Joe Conason — If the prospect of appointing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state irritates the Obama base, what will they make of keeping the man who has executed President Bush’s policies at the Pentagon?
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon
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Since 2004, U.S. operatives have been crossing the borders of friends and foes alike in a secret global hunt for al-Qaida. According to a bombshell report in The New York Times, a dozen or so raids have been conducted in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere since Donald Rumsfeld issued a secret order with the backing of the president.
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report investigates whether the recent U.S. attack in Syria was motivated by John McCain’s sagging polls.
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latimes.com
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While President Bush may not be too keen on diplomacy with U.S. “enemies,” talks of a military nature might be more his cup of tea. An Israeli intelligence expert says that Sunday’s U.S. attack inside Syrian territory may have been the result of a covert agreement between the two states to kill an al-Qaida operative.
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goarmy.com
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Syrian authorities have demanded to know why U.S. forces crossed the Iraq-Syria border and killed eight people. A U.S. official said the raid—the first ever on Syrian soil—targeted foreign fighters. Damascus said the dead were Syrian civilians.
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By William Pfaff — The West’s response to the situation in Georgia evades acknowledgement of the damage Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili has done to the United States and NATO, and to Georgia itself, which for the foreseeable future will now be a nation of limited sovereignty, and an awkward embarrassment to its Western allies.
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Two million Iraqis are living as refugees in Syria and Jordan, and the U.S. seems to be doing nothing to help the vast majority of them despite occupying their country while posing as a savior. A new film, “The Hard Way Home,” produced by the BBC to give faces to that depressing number, is available on YouTube in six parts. Here is the first.
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By Robert Fisk — Without a shot being fired, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ensured that anyone who wants anything in the Middle East has got to talk to Syria. He’s done nothing—and he’s won.
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, beset by accusations of corruption and bribery, announced Wednesday that he will resign after an internal Kadima Party election to choose a new leader on Sept. 17.
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By Robert Fisk — “You in the West have a moral duty in Europe to educate the United States more about the Middle East. If they don’t listen to you, they will not listen to us. They will continue with their mistakes.” I don’t think they’re going to listen, I mutter.
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bbc.co.uk
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A Sudan Airways passenger jet carrying around 200 people crashed while landing at the Khartoum airport late Tuesday, skidding off the runway during stormy weather, catching fire and splitting in half. Dozens of people on the craft were reported killed after earlier estimates placed the toll much higher.
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report looks at two welcome developments in the Middle East: On Wednesday, Israel and Syria said they had begun indirect talks in Turkey, the first confirmation in eight years of negotiations between the long-time enemies. On that same day, the Gulf state of Qatar scored a diplomatic coup by pulling off a deal intended to end Lebanon’s protracted crisis.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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The politically weakened government of Ehud Olmert is engaged in peace talks with neighboring Syria, the two countries have acknowledged. Turkey is moderating the indirect negotiations, the first since 2000. The last round of talks failed over the demand for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
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This past week, Syria made headlines not once but twice. One story implicates the country in enriching uranium and says that the CIA confirmed to Congress that the target of a mysterious Israeli air raid in northern Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, was a reactor built with North Korean help.
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flickr.com / John Barnabas
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“Informed sources” say the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a historically contested area between Israel and Syria, may soon find itself under new management. The two countries, which have been at war with each other since 1973, are both looking to resume the stalled 2000 peace talk process, which Syria has declared will not happen until the Golan Heights are returned.
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The latest “Mosaic Intelligence Report” takes a look at the “massive humanitarian crisis” that Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker failed to address in their update meetings with Congress about the Iraq war.
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AP photo / Karim Kadim
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By Patrick Cockburn — A new civil war may be looming in Iraq as American-backed Iraqi government forces battle Shiite militiamen for control of Basra and parts of Baghdad.
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AP photo / U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Lorie Jewell
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For those inclined to ask “who cares?” every time a celebrity-and-politics news item makes the rounds, consider it asked already. For everyone else, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by actress Angelina Jolie on Thursday about the problem of Iraqi refugees fleeing to Syria, Jordan and “a vast and very dangerous no-man’s land” within their own borders. Now, Jolie says, is the time for Americans to “do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.”
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By Joe Conason — The ascension of George W., according to many Bush loyalists, was a return of mature and wise foreign policy. Tell that to the ailing Middle East, whose future is now being pondered in a U.S. meeting that seems destined to fail.
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By Robert Fisk — Not only is The Independent reporter Fisk, like many others in Beirut, no longer shocked by a murder of yet another member of parliament, but he also is no longer affected by viewing the remains of the dead. Such is life in Lebanon today. Here, Fisk relates how Lebanese officials are learning to exist in a perpetual fog of fear.
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By Robert Fisk — Another member of Lebanon’s parliament, Antoine Ghanem, was killed on Sept. 19 when a bomb went off in his car outside his home in Beirut. This means, The Independent’s Robert Fisk reports, that ” ... It only takes one more murder for the democratically elected government of Lebanon to fall.”
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The North Korean government has denied allegations that it shared nuclear technology with Syria. A senior U.S. nuclear official earlier insisted that North Koreans were in Syria, possibly to supply the latter with illicit equipment.
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Ramping up already escalating tensions between the two nations, Syrian military officials claimed Thursday that Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace in the wee hours of the morning, prompting Syrian air defense forces to open fire until the planes turned around—an account Israel has yet to confirm or deny.
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The Iraqi prime minster is now under attack from leading U.S. politicians. Even President Bush is distancing himself. As Nouri al-Maliki turns to find “friends elsewhere”—in Syria, which he is visiting, and in Iran, with which he has close ties—will he come to be viewed as yet another monster we created?
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news.bbc.co.uk
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According to the U.N., roughly 50,000 Iraqis flee their homeland each month, bringing the total of refugees so far to over 2 million—in addition to the 2 million displaced within Iraq. The United States, for its part, has welcomed just 133 Iraqi refugees over the last nine months.
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More bad news for the more than 2 million Iraqis who have fled their occupied country: The Bush administration, after admitting fewer than 800 Iraqi refugees into the U.S. in the first three years of the occupation, has failed miserably to follow through on its promise to admit 7,000 more by the end of September.
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By Joe Conason — For a brief moment on Memorial Day, the U.S. and Iran set aside decades of hostility to meet and talk. That short rendezvous, although upsetting to neoconservative warmongers and their nefarious plans, holds real promise for American security and prosperity.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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At least 40 people have been killed during a day of intense fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah Islam, a splinter Palestinian militant group in Lebanon.
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A senior State Department official has confirmed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Syrian counterpart at an ongoing conference in Egypt. The two were expected to discuss Iraq’s security. Iran, too, has expressed interest in such a meeting, but when asked about that possibility earlier this week President Bush said simply that his top diplomat would not be rude to Iran’s foreign minister.
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For a guy who says he’s a Democrat, Joe Lieberman doesn’t show much party loyalty. The senator took a break from defending Bush and his war on Sunday to pile on the criticism of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria. Luckily Arlen Specter, a Republican no less, was on hand to defend the logic of diplomacy.
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AP
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Truthdig tips its hat this week to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who drew criticism from the Bush administration for meeting with Middle Eastern officials, including Syria’s president and members of Saudi Arabia’s advisory council.
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AP
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The British government has successfully negotiated the release of the 15 sailors held for nearly two weeks in Iran. Meawhile, over in Damascus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made major headway in promoting peace in the Middle East in her meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The White House has continued to criticize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria, while ignoring an earlier trip by a Republican congressional delegation. The speaker’s office maintains that it is worth meeting with “every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq.”
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Left: CNN.com / Right: wikipedia.org
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Over the president’s objections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to visit the president of Syria next weekend. Pelosi’s spokesman said the meeting was inspired by the Iraq Study Group, which recommended engaging regional players—a recommendation the Bush administration has so far ignored.
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Despite ramping up its verbal attacks on Iran and Syria, the U.S. will participate in a conference in Iraq next month that will include the two regional powers. A State Department spokesman said he would not “exclude any particular interaction” with the diplomatic foes.
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sptimes.com
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The Iraqi government has invited Bush administration antagonists Iran and Syria to Baghdad for security talks, which might also include the Arab League and the United Nations. The United States has not received an invitation.
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By Joe Conason — Should the United States attack Iran, which side would the Iraqi government support? The answer to that simple question is far from clear, despite the thousands of lives and billions of dollars we have sacrificed to support the ruling coalition in Baghdad.
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Resse Erlich
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By Reese Erlich — Award-winning journalist Reese Erlich discovers that everyday Iranians favor talks between America and Tehran, but most think the negotiations will amount to little more than window dressing.
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news.yahoo.com
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Hezbollah has threatened an escalation in its campaign against Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora unless he resigns. Hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah supporters took to the streets on Sunday, but Christian and Sunni leaders appear unlikely to bow to the pressure.
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Courtesy Reese Erlich
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By Joshua Scheer — Investigative reporter Reese Erlich, just back from a tour of the Middle East, tells Truthdig that the U.S. efforts to promote democracy in that part of the world are beset by religious fundamentalists on one side and unabashed kleptocrats on the other.
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Responding to the Iraq Study Group report on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said talks with Syria were not possible, and that President Bush wasn’t interested in speaking to Damascus either: “I can only say that the opinions I heard from the president and from all senior administration staff on the Syrian issue are such that he did not see a feasibility in talks….”
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By Joe Conason — If nothing else can be said for Robert Gates, he seems to have learned that the appearance of honesty is preferable to blatant attempts at deception.
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How America Became a Third World Country: 2013-2023
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