Month: July 2006

Israel’s recent response to actions by Hamas and Hezbollah has raised alarms in the region to a higher level than in any time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Rather than strengthen Israel’s security, it might well have weakened it by setting the stage, perhaps irreversibly, for a protracted conflict with various groups in … Continue reading “Olmert’s Folly?”

What explains the indifference of the Bush administration to the slaughter of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza? As of the morning of July 19, Israeli bombardments of Lebanese civilian residential districts and public infrastructure have murdered 300 Lebanese, wounded 1,000, and displaced 500,000. The Lebanese prime minister said that Israel’s attack has caused "unimaginable … Continue reading “A Handful of Neocons Are Instigating a Wider War”

Even in an age when e-mail, word processors, and high-speed Internet connections allow writers to almost instantaneously publish glaringly inchoate offerings, it is not often that one comes across a work as poorly conceived as Larry Kudlow’s contribution to National Review online (NRO) on Monday. In a piece less than 800 words long on the … Continue reading “No, We’re Not ‘All Israelis Now’”

Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt created quite a stir earlier this year with their report "The Israel Lobby," which contends that Israeli influence has led the U.S. to adopt self-destructive policies in the Middle East. In the following video links, Lenny Charles of INN discusses this thesis with Dr. Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer interview, part 1 … Continue reading “‘The Israel Lobby’ Revisited”

Is the Iranian nuclear challenge impossible to solve? To judge by President Ahmadinejad’s fiery rhetoric and his seeming indifference to world opinion, you could be forgiven for thinking so. The mullahs now look ready to defy the UN’s month-long ultimatum on uranium enrichment, which expires this week, and there is no obvious way to stop … Continue reading “Enrich Iranians, Not Uranium”

Attention-Deficit Americans Are Being Misled to War Conflating the U.S. action in Iraq with Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon is at best an oversimplification, and at worst an outright distortion of fact. It is common knowledge that Iran funds and supports Hezbollah. This week, during the G-8 summit, it was widely known that the … Continue reading “Backtalk, July 20, 2006”

After posing as the champion of democratic reform and the long-oppressed Shia minority in the Arab world, the administration of President George W. Bush appears to be scurrying back to Washington’s traditional policy of strong support for the region’s Sunni-dominated, pro-U.S. authoritarian governments. The shift has actually evolved over much of the past year, as … Continue reading “Back to Sunni Authoritarians?”

LATAKIA, Syria – Hezbollah, a group often misunderstood by Westerners, is a militant as well as political group. The Arabic name means “Party of God.” Led by the charismatic Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese Islamist Shi’ite group was set up in 1982 to resist Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the brutal civil war. The group … Continue reading “Hezbollah an Emerging Political Force”

Caught between the need to explore a possible diplomatic way out of an otherwise hopeless mess in Iraq and the domestic political need to keep the Democrats on the defensive, U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are playing a double game on the issue of a timetable for withdrawal. For many … Continue reading “Bush’s Double Game on an Iraq Withdrawal Timetable”

The U.S. government is finally moving – albeit with the slowness of its Katrina response – to rescue Americans trapped in Lebanon. As our warships steam toward the Eastern Mediterranean, however, innocent tourists out for a pleasant sojourn in Beirut have been handed some galling news (via Andrew Sullivan): “I am currently enrolled in an … Continue reading “Playing the Sunni Card”