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When
George W. Bush arrives in
Islamabad on March 4, 2006,
his will be the first visit
to Pakistan by a US president
since Bill Clinton touched
down there in March 2000.
Aside from the coincidence
of the month, the circumstances
could hardly be more different.
In 2000, Clinton stayed for
barely five hours, refused
to be photographed with the
then recently installed military
dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf,
and proceeded to lecture the
general on Pakistan's continued
sponsorship of the Taliban
in Afghanistan and the Islamist
insurgency in Indian-controlled
Kashmir. Full
Story >>
On
the surface, the brief succession
crisis that gripped Kuwait
in January 2006 ended in the
arbitrary replacement of one
member of the ruling Al Sabah
family with another. When
Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir
died after a long illness
on January 15, he was succeeded
by the crown prince, Sheikh
Saad al-Abdallah al-Salim,
himself in the throes of a
lengthy sickness and suffering
also from senile dementia.
Full
Story >>
Joining
Ang Lee, director of the gay
cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain,
among the winners at the January
16 Golden Globes award ceremony
was the director Hany Abu-Assad,
a Palestinian born in Israel
whose Paradise Now
took home the prize for best
foreign language film. While
critics of all persuasions
remark upon what Brokeback
Mountain’s victory
means about Hollywood and
American mores, it is perhaps
more remarkable that Paradise
Now, a film about two
Palestinians recruited to
carry out suicide bombings,
was deemed unremarkable enough
to be honored by Hollywood.
Full
Story>>
The
two successive strokes and
the cerebral hemorrhage
that struck down Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
came just a few weeks after
the somber ceremonies marking
the tenth anniversary of
the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin. The causes of the
two occurrences were very
different, and so was the
actual physical outcome,
for Rabin died within minutes
of sustaining his wounds,
while doctors still hold
out glimmers of hope for
Sharon’s survival,
albeit with grave handicaps.
Full
Story>>
Following
six months of rumor and speculation
in Yemen, President Ali Abdallah
Salih did the expected and
announced that he would stand
for reelection in the presidential
contest scheduled for September
2006. Full
Story>>
The
debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute
someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters
cry “Havoc!”
True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain
summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always
said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through
a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech
on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable,
adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless
getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he,
like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain
that withdrawal is simply
“cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full
Story>>
At
the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) earlier this month, presidential candidates
John McCain and Barack Obama competed over who would become the “candidate
for Israel.” The match came to a draw when both candidates
pledged undying and unconditional support for Israel. While their
support for “Israel right or wrong” was unquestionable,
at the end of all the commotion, the most pertinent question for
Americans and the world remained unasked and unanswered: Who is
the candidate for peace? Full
Story>>
Quick: Who is the strategic victor, to date, of the war in Iraq?
Nearly everyone outside the Bush administration (and perhaps some
within it) would answer: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The
catastrophe of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has bolstered the
clerical regime in Tehran, while souring ordinary Iranians on
the prospect of U.S.-delivered “democracy.” The occupation
has done so by emplacing Iranian-backed Shiite Islamists in power
in Baghdad and cooling the jets of those in Washington hoping to “shock
and awe” Iran's mullahs. Full
Story>>
Libya's Fat Cat The Topeka Capital-Journal Januwary 11, 2008
Chris Toensing
Few
dictators in the world are sitting prettier in 2008 than Col.
Muammar Qaddafi of Libya. In a region full of potentates and presidents-for-life,
his reign is supreme. Having seized power in a 1969 coup, he has
ruled his country for longer than any other Arab head of state.
And now, as wintry January begins, the colonel has quietly completed
his journey back in from the cold. Full
Story>>
