by James A. Russell It’s hard not to cringe watching the United States careen around the Middle East these days, dispensing bombs, money and political fealty in various doses depending on the crisis of the day to a series of supposed allies that take turns slapping us around while demanding our protection. These unseemly and
by Mitchell Plitnick Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood continues on the diplomatic front with the opening of two sets of talks this week in Cairo. One set will have Egypt brokering discussions with Fatah and Hamas on the future of governance in the Gaza Strip, while the other will see Egyptian and Palestinian Authority (PA)
via LobeLog
James A. Russell
The predictions of doom in the Middle East that are dominating thinking in the foreign policy commentariat of Washington and other capitals over the spread of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could use a little perspective.
An unlikely source of insight transpired the other day when [...]
via LobeLog
by Marsha B. Cohen
This month the Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration had slowed the shipment of hellfire missiles to Israel after it bombed a UN school in Gaza on Aug. 3 with the US-made weapon. The White House has insisted that weapons transfers to Israel have not been [...]
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by Thomas W. Lippman
To understand why Israel and Hamas keep fighting, and why Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to forge a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it helps to do some homework. Read Volume 8 of the State Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” series [...]
via LobeLog
by Henry Precht
Two significant anniversaries this month: the 1914 beginning of fighting in World War I in Europe and the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam.
The outbreak of conflict 100 years ago followed a period of intense diplomacy within and between two alliances. Germany and Austria on one side; [...]
by Paul Pillar
Applying a familiar label or phrase can be a substitute for good analysis, or for any analysis at all. The application activates a set of presumptions associated with the label or phrase while brushing aside any other relevant facts that may contradict those presumptions. The current conflict in Gaza has stimulated a [...]
via LobeLog
by James A. Russell
Watching the US-backed Israeli bombardment of Gaza makes me ashamed to be an American. The sight of US-made bombs bursting in the air, in hospitals, in homes, and over beaches is a far cry from the sense of American exceptionalism engendered by Francis Scott Key’s observations of the [...]
As mentioned in today’s Talking Points, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has an op-ed in the Washington Times in which he pronounces the “death of ‘linkage’.” Ayalon claims that both the recent instability in the Middle East and WikiLeaks provide proof that “linkage”—which he defines as “if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was solved, [...]
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Kristol, Nationalism, Nostalgia and World War I
via LobeLog
by Jim Lobe
Just as this week marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as noted Wednesday by Amb. Hunter, it also marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the “Great War” that, among other things, began the long (and often bloody) process of dismantling the imperial [...]