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No one seems to have noticed Central Asia's waking giantThe Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) brings together almost half the world's population. Several members own nuclear weapons, many are big energy suppliers, and the grouping includes some of the world's fastest growing economies. Yet few outside Central Asia have heard much about it.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 06-Jan-2009 01:14
Hamas must step down as Gaza's keeper
Regardless of the outcome of Israel's barbaric "Operation Cast Lead," one thing is certain: It is high time for Hamas to step down as keeper of Gaza. People will object and remind me that the movement was democratically elected. My answer to that is yes, but Hamas also happens to be incompetent. Most of us in the Middle East still believe.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 06-Jan-2009 00:59
As Obama enters, a slate of Arab woes beckons
On January 20, the Obama foreign policy team will inherit from the Bush administration an increasingly unstable Arab world. The more than 300 million Arabs in 22 countries, with the rare exception of a few Gulf nations, are lagging behind most of the world and are becoming vulnerable to unrest.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 06-Jan-2009 00:44
Force will not advance Israeli or Palestinian aims
Wasted time is always to be regretted. But in the Middle East wasting time is also dangerous. Another year has now passed with little progress in bridging the divide between Palestinians and Israelis. The current air strikes on Gaza, and continuing rocket attacks on Ashkelon, Sderot and other towns in southern Israel.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 05-Jan-2009 01:17
On immigration, Europe can learn much from the US
As the United States prepares to celebrate the inauguration of its first African-American president, it showcases again one of the best aspects of its national identity. Though it took more than 200 years to reach this point, foreign observers, especially in Europe, marvel at Barack Obama's ascendancy.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 05-Jan-2009 01:02
A page that never turns in the Mideast
Perhaps Barack Obama imagined that he could take office on January 20 with a clean slate in the Middle East. He spoke of opening a dialogue with America's adversaries, such as Syria and Iran, in the pursuit of peace and security in the region. That image of "turning a page" brought hope to many in the Middle East.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 05-Jan-2009 00:47
Hopefully, Obama will teach Americans shared sacrifice
The Great Depression seared some life lessons into my parents' generation. My father hasn't had a mortgage in decades, even though his children keep telling him about the tax advantages. He buys store-label brands, clips the "sale" coupons out of the newspaper, and wears well-mended suits he bought 50 years ago.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 05-Jan-2009 00:32
Israel has no real strategy to deal with Hamas
Israel has opted to launch a major attack on Hamas in Gaza. The idea appears to be to use heavy military force, primarily from the air, but with a limited objective: to weaken Hamas to a point where it returns to a cease-fire on conditions congenial to Israel. The opening conditions were favorable from Israel's standpoint:
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 03-Jan-2009 01:07
Gaza and Lebanon: some similarities
Many analogies are being made between the ongoing Israeli attack against Hamas in Gaza and the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon. Here are the most important ones, in my view. The first relates to provenance: Hamas and Hizbullah did not exist before the early 1980s.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 03-Jan-2009 00:52
Russia's economic downturn pushes Putinism into crisis
"Owing to the harsh economic situation, it was decided to cut off the light at the end of the tunnel as a temporary measure." That is but one of the jokes making the rounds in Russia these days, as the country faces its most severe crisis in a decade. Having been born in the early 1960s, my generation remembers two crises.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 19:05
2009 is a make or break year for the EU and Turkey
An abrupt and unusual word buried in a European Union declaration on December 8 showed the mounting risks of a breakdown in Turkey's EU membership talks. Ankara's need to solve its problems with Cyprus, foreign ministers warned, has become "urgent." Thanks also to Turkey's failure to meet EU reform benchmarks since negotiations started in 2005.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 18:50
Gaza hides a war over the Arabs' future
Amid the carnage in Gaza, it's not immediately obvious that what is taking place has less to do with Israelis versus Palestinians than with Arabs versus Arabs, principally to define the future of the Middle East. The Gaza conflict has become part of an ongoing confrontation between regimes emerging from the Arab state system established over six decades ago.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 18:35
Israel's goal, and Hamas': a cease-fire on better terms
The truce between Hamas and Israel ended in the early hours of December 19, but the accusations over why it ended have followed the missiles and rockets across the border.Hamas accuses Israel of not complying with the terms of the six-month Egyptian-mediated truce under which Israel was expected to end its siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 01:16
A specter is haunting the world, his name Karl Marx
Karl Marx has returned, if not quite from the grave then from history's dustbin. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck recently said that Marx's answers "may not be irrelevant" to today's problems. French President Nicholas Sarkozy allowed himself to be photographed leafing through the pages of Marx's "Das Kapital."
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 01:01
Israel ignores its own history in Gaza
When diplomacy fails to deliver in the Middle East, other options come to the fore, usually in some form of violence practiced in different ways by both sides. The current violence in Gaza is disproportionately being carried out by Israel's armed forces, which are waging a fierce attack against mostly unarmed civilians, killing hundreds at a time.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 31-Dec-2008 00:46
Google makes the world efficient, but is it Big Brother?
"Google violates its 'don't be evil' motto." To Google's credit, if you Google that sentence, you can find reference to a debate on that claim that I took part in recently. As it happens, I have a complex relationship with Google. I have fed at its trough many times - as a personal guest; as an advisory board member of Stop Badware, an NGO it sponsors; and.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 29-Dec-2008 01:17
The confrontation over Lebanon's identity continues
It's Christmas time in Lebanon. The piano player in the lounge at the Phoenicia Hotel is pounding out carols for an audience that includes many Muslims, judging by the headscarves. Along Hamra Street in the heart of Muslim West Beirut, the stores are wooing holiday shoppers to buy the latest fashions and electronic gadgets.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 29-Dec-2008 01:02
Re-learning the biblical 40 years in Gaza
God punished the arrogance and hubris of the Hebrews in the Old Testament by making them wander the wilderness for 40 years, before allowing a later, more humble, generation to enter Canaan. The current generation of Israeli Jews is not as proficient at learning these 40-year lessons, it seems, to judge from Israel's current ferocious attack on Gaza.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 29-Dec-2008 00:47
In confidence: a half-hour with Syria's Bashar Assad
Syrian President Bashar Assad says he doesn't want to send a message to Barack Obama, exactly, but to express a three-part hope for the incoming administration's Middle East policy: First, he hopes Obama won't start "another war anywhere in the world, especially not in the Middle East." And he trusts that the doctrine of "pre-emptive war".
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 27-Dec-2008 01:13
Iran is coming to grips with Barack Hussein Obama
Since its Islamist revolution of 1979, Iran's hard-line leadership has relentlessly painted America as a racist, bloodthirsty power bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide. Nothing punctures this narrative more than the election of an African-American, Barack Obama, who supports dialogue with Iran and whose middle name - Hussein.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 27-Dec-2008 00:58
The Middle East as a nagging irritant
A year-end look at trends in the Arab world during the past 12 months reveals little to be optimistic about. The core weaknesses, distortions and dysfunctionalities of the Arab world all seemed to worsen during the past year. Here are the major trends that I believe define our region these days, and will persist for some years to come.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 27-Dec-2008 00:43
Our Mideastern future: a pair of shoes and a gun
What do the recent shoe-throwing incident with Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, the uncertain truce in Gaza, and Lebanon's national dialogue all have in common? Very little, except that the three offer up a vision of the Middle East as a place largely devoid of constructive ideas, where the rule of the gun looms large on the horizon.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 24-Dec-2008 01:15
The Status of Forces Agreement happens to be good for Iraq
Barely a day after the Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq (SOFA) was adopted by the Iraqi Parliament, the deal prolonging the stay of United States forces in the country was already being questioned in different and unexpected quarters. The SOFA stipulates a total US withdrawal from all Iraq over the next three years.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 24-Dec-2008 01:00
Arabs are looking for deeds, not words
US President-elect Barack Obama faces major challenges and opportunities in his foreign policy, and he is getting plenty of unsolicited advice. Here's my contribution on an issue that he - in an interview with The Chicago Tribune earlier this month - defined as a priority for his administration: improving the US image in the Muslim world.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 24-Dec-2008 00:45
Obama and Bush: not as different as you might think
Negotiating with America's adversaries is a tricky business, and with President-elect Barack Obama on the way in, most observers of US foreign policy are confident that negotiating is about to become the predominant foreign policy approach - for better or worse. They are mistaken, however, if they think this approach will be a drastic change.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 23-Dec-2008 01:16
As in Greece, a specter of chaos haunts Europe's streets
The riots that have rampaged across Greece in December may have many causes, but one that is rarely mentioned is the fracturing of the Greek left into George Papandreou's Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party, PASOK, and an increasingly radicalized faction that refuses all accommodation with either the European Union or modern economics.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 23-Dec-2008 01:01
Are US officials guilty of war crimes?
Will the Bush administration be held accountable for war crimes? The answer ought to be yes, if the verdict of the Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody is to mean anything. The bipartisan report, released on December 11 by senators Carl Levin and John McCain, concluded that the torture.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 23-Dec-2008 00:46
The Iraq accord grants the US permission to stay
In November, the Iraqi and US governments finally signed a long-discussed and much-disputed security agreement. The agreement provides for the possibility of a US troop withdrawal by 2011, but it would seem to be more a permission to postpone a full withdrawal indefinitely.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 22-Dec-2008 01:13
Revise regulation, the theory of market equilibrium is wrong
We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The salient feature of the crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock like OPEC raising the price of oil. It was generated by the financial system itself. This fact - a defect inherent in the system - contradicts the generally accepted theory that financial markets tend toward equilibrium.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 22-Dec-2008 00:58
A new angle on Hizbullah's weapons
Amid high hopes and low expectations, Lebanon's faltering national dialogue, which brings together representatives of the opposing March 8 and March 14 political camps, will resume today. The fact that the political and social chasm separating the two sides has grown in recent months and weeks.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 22-Dec-2008 00:43
A year of regional elections: the view from Istanbul
As Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's leading foreign policy strategist, explains the series of political choices that are ahead in the Middle East next year, he might be describing a row of dominoes. If they fall in the right direction, good things could happen. But if they start toppling the wrong way, watch out.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 22-Dec-2008 00:28
So long neocons, but some of their ideals may be useful
With George W. Bush's presidency about to end, what will happen to the neoconservatives? Rarely in the history of American politics have a small number of bookish intellectuals had so much influence on foreign policy as the neocons had under Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, neither of whom is noted for his deep intellectual interests.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 20-Dec-2008 01:11
Remove the veil from Arab wealth funds
The full impact of the current global economic crisis on the Arab world is likely to be very bad, because the major income sources of the region are all dropping simultaneously. Oil and gas exports income is down by over two-thirds, income from funds invested abroad and at home is down by at least one-third, unemployment will rise everywhere.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 20-Dec-2008 00:56
Turkey faces obstacles in changing its constitution
The Turkish foreign minister and the chief negotiator for the European Union, Ali Babacan, speaking at a NATO foreign ministers meeting recently, mentioned that the Turkish Constitution as it stands now will not help Turkey move forward with its reform agenda. This resonates with a statement made last September.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 19-Dec-2008 01:07
Only a credible threat of response can deter cyber-terror
In August 2008, Russian troops moved into Georgia. Observers dispute who fired first, but there was a little noticed dimension of the conflict that will have major repercussions for the future. Computer hackers attacked Georgian government Web sites in the weeks preceding the outbreak of armed conflict.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 19-Dec-2008 00:52
Spain's collusion on rendition stopovers
A top secret government document obtained by Spain's left-leaning El Pais newspaper has confirmed what many people already suspected: that the previous conservative government led by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar knew of and consented to the use of Spanish airbases by the US military.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 19-Dec-2008 00:37
Afghanistan's principal hope is the rule of law
It's easy to get depressed reading the news coming out of Afghanistan. The insurgents are getting stronger, the United States is sending another 20,000 troops there - and yet even Defense Secretary Bob Gates admits that American soldiers aren't a long-term solution. So what to do?
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 18-Dec-2008 01:13
Barack Obama fails the test on global warming priorities
In one of his first public policy statements as America's president-elect, Barack Obama focused on climate change, and clearly stated both his priorities and the facts on which these priorities rest. Unfortunately, both are weak, or even wrong. Obama's policy outline was presented via video to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Governors' Global Warming Summit.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 18-Dec-2008 00:58
Let's not be crushed by the Syria train
"Don't panic," the former US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, told his Lebanese friends at a conference organized jointly last week by the Lebanon Renaissance Foundation and the Aspen Institute. And the Lebanese panicked, because the March 14 majority doesn't know how to make itself relevant as the transition in Washington accelerates.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 18-Dec-2008 00:43
The settlers' presence is a time bomb waiting to happen
The settler riots earlier this month were some of the worst instances of violence in Hebron in many years. But they were not isolated incidents and cannot be divorced from the brittle situation in Hebron that is a direct result of the city's fanatical settler presence, nor from the provocation of the settlement project in occupied Palestinian territory in general.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 17-Dec-2008 07:22
Remembering Washington's opening to China decades later
America's opening to China by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1971-1972 was a historic breakthrough. Less famous, but of equal importance, was the next major step, taken by Jimmy Carter exactly 30 years ago, establishing full diplomatic relations between China and the United States.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 17-Dec-2008 07:07
All Hamas demands is Israeli respect
The coming days will reveal much about the mettle and the intentions of the Palestinian Hamas movement that now effectively runs a mini-state in the Gaza Strip, after defeating its rival Fatah in street skirmishes last year. The six-month-old cease-fire with Israel ends this week and talks are taking place now between Israeli and Egyptian officials about renewing it.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 17-Dec-2008 06:52
A new Moroccan party may just hide old ways
Since the creation of the Movement of All Democrats earlier this year in Morocco, many observers knew it would be just a matter of time before former Deputy Interior Minister and newly elected parliamentarian Fouad Ali al-Himma would turn his association into a political party. Shortly after forming parliamentary coalitions in both the upper and lower houses.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 16-Dec-2008 01:04
The dangerous vacuum at the end of Pax Americana
It has become popular to suggest that when the dust settles from the global financial crisis, it may become clear that the United States-led postwar world has come to an end. If so, the global system that has secured peace, security, openness, and economic growth over the past six decades could be in grave danger.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 16-Dec-2008 00:49
A neoconservative view on talking to Iran
The Obama administration will surely talk directly with representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran. So did the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Carter administrations. These talks will produce nothing, however, just as those earlier efforts did (and as the talks conducted by the European Union-3 this decade.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 16-Dec-2008 00:34
What Israelis want in terms of US-Iran talks
Unless effective measures are taken soon, Iran will have a nuclear bomb within a year according to worst-case assessments, or a few years under more optimistic ones. President-elect Barack Obama is publicly committed to a policy of engagement with Iran. The question is no longer whether to engage, but how to do so.
Source : dailystar.com.lb | 15-Dec-2008 01:13