Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category
Rice: ‘Iraq was harder than I thought’
Filed under: Democracy, Iraq, Islam, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, War, religion |
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By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday said the United States remained “concerned” about (nuclear) proliferation in the Middle East and singled out Syria in particular. Washington has been “concerned by proliferation in Syria for some time,” she told a group of editors and reporters from the Middle East Times and The Washington Times during an hour-long meeting on Thursday.
America’s top diplomat also reflected on “two tough decisions taken: to overthrow the Taliban and to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein.”"Both right and both necessary. Both very difficult pathways for these young democracies,” said Rice.
Looking back on the last five years and the war in Iraq, Rice admitted: “I thought it would be tough, but I didn’t think it would be this tough.” She added, “It’s a society that’s only now beginning to emerge.”
Commenting on the Islamists’ loss of ground in Iraq Rice said, “In showing their brutality al-Qaida has reunited the Iraqi people again.”
“This is not a war with or about or against Islam. This is about a group of people who have a particularly converted view of religion and will kill in its name.”
Politics & Policies: Bush’s last hurrah
There was no mention of the “axis of evil” in U.S. President George W. Bush’s final State of the Union address Monday night, although the president did made a point of singling out Iran and al-Qaida as continuing to threaten the advance of democracy in the Middle East.
Bush’s Gordian knot
Filed under: Democracy, Iraq, Middle East, War, military intervention, terrorism |
Leave a Comment President George W. Bush is about to embark on a tour of several Middle Eastern countries starting next week as his presidency rounds the corner heading for the final stretch of its second and final term at the White House. Bush, who started out his presidency wanting largely to ignore the Middle East and its perpetual conflicts, found himself dragged into the crux of the Arab-Israeli dispute despite his initial intention of staying well away from a problem of Gordian proportion. If Alexander the Great is said to have circumvented the dilemma of the Gordian knot by using his sword to slice through the rope, thus eliminating the knot, Bush (wrongly) believed he could cut through the Gordian knot of Islamist-driven terrorism by invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
Political predictions for 2008
Filed under: Democracy, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Mercenaries, military intervention |
Leave a Comment There are multiple areas of conflict or potential conflict in the world today with several of those conflicted areas having real potential to erupt into full-scale war, civil war, or a combination of both.
Kurdish self-determination ‘by all means’
Filed under: Democracy, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Turkey, military intervention |
Leave a Comment By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
Geography, history — and geopolitics — has not been very kind to the Kurdish people. Geography has spread Kurdistan across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. History has only allowed Kurdistan to exist as an independent nation intermittently throughout the ages.
The British are coming, the British are coming, I mean going
By Claude Salhani
December 22, 2007
The British are coming, the British are coming, I mean going. . . . The war in Iraq is finally winding down — at least for the Brits. British forces have officially handed over control of the southern Iraqi city of Basra to the Iraqi government after unofficially declaring victory and deciding it was time to leave.
ANALYSIS: What is Washington’s game plan?
Filed under: Democracy, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, politics, refugees |
Leave a Comment By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
The inevitable question poised on the lips of everyone as a mild autumn gently begins to set upon the Greater Washington area is whether the United States is likely to initiate another war in the Middle East before the George Bush and Dick Cheney ticket runs out in January 2009.
And another one…
BY CLAUDE SALHANI
8 November 2007
KAREN Hughes, one of President George W Bush’s closest confidants, announced this week that she was leaving her job of trying to boost America’s much tarnished image, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, an image largely darkened by the invasion of Iraq. Hughes, a 50 year old communications specialist from Texas, had a rather impossible task given the way this administration has handled much of its foreign policy.
Why solving the Mideast crisis is so complex
Filed under: Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, conflict resolution, military intervention, politics, refugees, terrorism |
Leave a Comment POLITICS & POLICIES
Claude Salhani, Middle East Times
October 29, 2007
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| MIDEAST MIND MAP: A mind map of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would offer a quick snapshot of the interlinked problems facing attendees of an upcoming Middle East peace summit expected to be held in Annapolis, MD in November 2007. (Claude Salhani) |
– A few days ago, I was explaining the functionality of a “mind map” to a group of students studying for their Masters degree at my alma mater, Royal Roads University in beautiful Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, Canada, where I lecture two weeks every October.
A mind map is a very instructive tool used by conflict interveners to identify the principal stakeholders in a dispute, and then further find and represent all possible sources of strife or influence over the situation. The advantage of a mind map is that it permits one to see in a single slide all problems, problem makers, as well as potential problem facilitators. The mind map allows its users a quick snapshot of the minefield of problems a conflict resolution specialist is up against when trying to resolve a particular dispute.
Editorial: A second, staggering Mideast refugee crisis
Filed under: Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine, Syria, War, military intervention, refugees |
Leave a Comment Middle East Times
October 29, 2007
– The US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 has created the Middle East’s second-largest refugee crisis in the region’s modern history. The first came about with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the mass exodus of Palestinians that ensued. To this day, some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees remain unsettled and, with them, so does the Middle East.
