A senior Pentagon official has been on a fortnight tour of little-known European and Eurasian capitals trying to deliver a dribble of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan. As the NYT notes “The low-profile trip reads more like a geography test than a geostrategic foray.” Debra Cagan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for coalition affairs, …
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Category:Middle East
Middle East worst case scenario
A number of commentators have discussed a middle east worse case scenario over the past couple of months. The Futurist joined in with their September-October issue. The discussion is interesting and you can see a summary online here. The lead article acknowledges that a regional war engulfing the Middle East is still a “low probability …
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Israel secretly bombs Syria for nukes …
former Israeli prime minister and Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel launched an air strike against Syria on September 6, aafter weeks of refusing to confirm the operation. It appears the rationale for the strike is that Syria had nuclear weapon making materials from North Korea. While this may have been true and …
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Embrace Islam
What a good idea! It sounds strange given the geopolitical tension around the world. But embracing Islam would be a whole lot more productive than condemning it. Now, being atheist, I’m not advocating religion. Rather, I’m suggesting that a positive attitude that embraces people would have better results than a divisive and condemning one that …
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Iraqis want end to occupation more than ever
A survey for the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq shows that about 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military “surge” of the past six months. The relative optimism registered in November 2005 has deteriorated to the gloom of this year’s …
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Baghdad dividing wall counters peace
Construction of another dividing wall in Baghdad between Shula and Ghazaliya districts causes more division than unity. It is another sign of the primitive knee-jerk thinking of an administration resorting to primitive policy. The wall is an attempt to separate Sunni and Shia districts. But of course it also separates families, neighbours and communities, it …
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US changing policy; will reduce troops in Iraq
Over the past month there has been a definite change in the US administration policy of troop levels in Iraq. The surge is over and political pragmatism underpins troop reductions. On September 13 Bush said that about 30,000 troops might return home by summer 2008 (pre-surge level), starting with 5,700 by Christmas. Then on 14 …
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US waking up to the reality of Palestine …?
It is surprising to hear US Secretary of State publicly announcing that Palestine must be recognised if peace talks are to make progress. Surprising partly because it is the same person that provided much of the authority for invading Iraq and partly because it is against the wishes of the Israeli propaganda machine which has …
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