The New York Times published an interview with Bashar Assad this week, and the Syrian president has to be deeply disappointed with the results. Widely interpreted as an unconventional means of circumventing the diplomatic roadblocks that have kept Damascus in Washington’s doghouse for months, the tactic seems to have backfired by exposing Assad’s position to ridicule. Coupled with reports that Israel rebuffed a recent Syrian offer to arrange a full cease-fire by Hizbullah, the Times fiasco confirms that bolder and far more imaginative steps are required to break the logjam. It is too late for “feelers” to have any positive effect, especially when Damascus has failed to address the glaring inconsistencies between official policy and official practice. |Full Story
Yasser Arafat completes his third year in virtual captivity on Wednesday. Once the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001, had taken place, Ariel Sharon’s government began a concerted campaign to equate the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation with the senseless violence perpetrated by 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers. Less than three months later, Israeli tanks began the piecemeal demolition of Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, a process that eventually evolved into a full-fledged siege that has waxed and waned for the past two years. Since then, Sharon has alternately dismissed Arafat as “redundant” and threatened to assassinate him for being “an obstacle to peace.” Despite the pressure applied by the Israelis and buttressed by their US allies, however, it is Arafat who remains the central figure in this tragedy: So long as he is alive, no peace deal will survive without his imprimatur. |Full Story
US envoy William Burns received a lesson Monday in the workings of his country’s “special relationship” with Israel. As he got down to work on the second day of a challenging mission aimed at reviving the moribund peace process, the Israelis demonstrated their views by conducting a deadly military foray in Ramallah and breaking ground for a new illegal settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. This course in lopsided alliances has been offered by the Jewish state and avidly attended by successive US governments for more than half a century. And still America has learned nothing, a failure that has cost it and its people dearly in both blood and treasure. |Full Story
Powerful similarities notwithstanding, Iraq is not Vietnam at least not yet. The weekend that just passed was overflowing with symbolism, with the commander of US forces in Iraq gushing about recent successes, only to have insurgents respond by killing people from no fewer than five different countries in the ensuing 24 hours. America’s misadventure in Southeast Asia was on a far grander scale, but it too was informed by a mission whose vagueness increased as time passed and whose credibility ebbed accordingly. One of the main differences this time is that Washington’s foes seem just as aimless, a fact that threatens to cause even more unnecessary death and destruction than would otherwise be the case. |Full Story
Whether one judges events according to the dictates of law, the reality of politics or the anxieties of human beings in distress, it should be clear to all concerned that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached a critical and historic junction. Either the conflict is resolved fairly and peacefully or it ignites a wider conflict that draws in many other actors. In some respects, tensions and resentments over the Israeli-Palestinian situation have already contributed to the ongoing global political stresses that have resulted, in part, in terror and the “war against terror.” It was very clear during the past two wars in Iraq that widespread Arab, Islamic and global criticism of the American-Israeli position on the Palestine issue was one reason why so many people around the world either did not see the United States as a credible political actor or actively opposed its positions.|Full Story
The recent fast pace of events related to the nuclear sector in Iran should cause all interested parties to pause and explore more closely the concerns and perspectives of the principal actors. The process of diplomacy and the practice of serious, rational dialogue have both helped to tone down the frenzied rhetoric that had dominated the scene some months ago. Only Israel remains as the party that not only routinely sends out scare warnings about the alleged threat that Iran represents, but also escalates the intensity of those warnings week by week, achieving ever higher levels of incredulity.|Full Story
