In addition to being the capitals of three Middle Eastern countries, Baghdad (Iraq), Beirut (Lebanon), and Doha (Qatar) have something else in common, and it's President George W. Bush's global policy. While the violence taking place in Baghdad and Beirut is a direct...
The US Can’t Run the Show in the Middle East
It feels like déjà vu all over again. A U.S. official leaves for a conference in East Asia where he or she is supposed to discuss issues that affect the interests of the governments and economies in the region. Instead, the American representative ends up investing...
‘Birth Pangs of a
New Middle East’?
If you've been watching the television images from Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine and have been getting a little depressed, cheer up! U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has explained to reporters that the scenes of death, destruction, and human misery from...
All Hell Breaks Loose in the Middle East
U.S. President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers had pledged that after ousting Saddam Hussein they would succeed in transforming "liberated" Iraq into a prosperous democracy that would serve as a model of political and economic freedom for the...
Is Anyone Still Listening to the Flaming Bush?
Please name the U.S. presidential candidate who made the following point during the 2000 race for the White House: "I think that one of the problems that we have faced in the world is that we are so much more powerful than any single nation has been in...
Israel’s Failed Strategy: The Writing Is on the Wall
Some critics of the security barrier that the Israeli government has been constructing in the West Bank and Gaza have compared it to the infamous Berlin Wall that separated the Soviet-occupied part (East Berlin) of the city from the one controlled by West Germany...
Nationalism: The Last Refuge of the Political Loser
It seems like only yesterday American pundits were writing political obituaries for President George W. Bush and his Republican allies on Capitol Hill. With the anti-American violence in Iraq showing no signs of ending any time soon and helping to force Mr. Bush's...
The Ever Elusive ‘Tipping Point’ in Iraq
For a day or two after the killing of terrorist gang leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, I was fantasizing that US President George W. Bush and his aides were finally getting smart when it came to Iraq. A few hours after the Jordanian-born head of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed...
US Stumbles Onto Road to Diplomacy With Iran
For several years I have argued that Washington should adopt a Realpolitik-type approach to dealing with Iran, including by opening a direct diplomatic dialogue with Tehran aimed at resolving some of the differences between the two governments. In particular, I've...
Iraq Like Water Off a Duck’s Back to Bush, Blair
Compare the two American dramas that the world was watching last Thursday. In Houston, Texas, two former Enron executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted of fraud and conspiracy for their role in the energy trader's collapse in 2001 and could end up...