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Bluster and Begging: The Duality of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East The Bush administration requested Syria’s participation in “calming the situation” in Iraq. Bashar al-Asad received letters from Bush and Colin Powell concerning bilateral relations and Iraq. al-Hayat: At the same time, Gen. Myers insisted that foreign fighters continued to infiltrate from Syria […]

Salon.com Article on Fallujah My piece on Fallujah and its connection to the Palestine issue is online at Salon.com. Readers interested in this angle will also benefit from Tom Engelhardt’s “The American Legacy in Iraq at Tomdispatch.com. See also the always essential Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo for the important point that the US has […]

Lone on How to Fix It Salim Lone’s op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail gives an experienced UN hand’s view of the unfolding disaster in Iraq. He was communications director in Baghdad for Sergio Vieira de Mello before the bombing last summer. His point is an interesting one, now that so many Democratic politicians […]

Brahimi Plan unveiled The full text of the Brahimi plan is at the UN Observer. Here are the main points: ‘ 2. Let me emphasise from the outset that in this political process in Iraq, the elections scheduled to take place in January 2005 are the most important milestone. There is no substitute for the […]

Muqtada Agrees to Dissolve Militia, May go into temporary exile in Iran az-Zaman reports that Muqtada al-Sadr has accepted a solution of the problems between him and the Coalition on the basis of a deal. It would provide for the senior ayatollahs to issue a ruling or fatwa dissolving the Army of the Mahdi, Muqtada’s […]

Muqtada Will Negotiate without Preconditions: Iran Involved Reuters is reporting that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ceased demanding a US pullback from Najaf as a precondition for negotiating. He gave in under enormous pressure from the senior Shiite establishment in Najaf, which wants to avert a US invasion of the city a la Fallujah. […]

Mediation with Muqtada and the Limits of Tolerance The Scotsman reports that the standoff between the American forces and those of Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf continues. Muqtada appears to be seeking a compromise. I thought the following anecdote typical of the dry humor of the ayatollahs, even in parlous times. It concerns Muqtada’s negotiations with […]

Arguing with Bush I saw President Bush’s news conference Tuesday evening. He said many things that disturbed me, not in any partisan sort of way (and I continue to maintain that simple partisanship makes for bad analysis), but on grounds of ethics and clear thinking and democratic values. I got the transcript and began arguing […]

Shadid: “It’s Pretty Bad Here.” It isn’t often that one gets to hear a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist speak in his own voice from the field, but that’s what you get at the Washington Post with the Tony Shadid question and answer session. Shadid is one of the best, and being an Arabist with long experience […]