Middle East

On February 5th and 6th, 2007, the Hudson Institute, with support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, convened a small workshop of noted specialists on Turkey, Europe, and international security to assess the state of America’s alliance with Turkey and, more specifically, to ascertain whether the United States risks “losing” Turkey as a long-time and critical ally.

When the character of the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, recently appeared on the popular Israel TV comedy show Eretz nehederet (A Wonderful Country), she was depicted singing Aretha Franklin’s famous anthem "Respect." As Rice arrives in Israel this weekend for her seventh visit in eight months, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be well advised to show her just a little bit more respect.

Edward Luttwak, an internationally recognized authority in the area of military strategy, recently contended in testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations that, "only with the United States’ disengagement can Iraqis find their own equilibrium." He underscores the futility of trying to micromanage an Iraqi reality which lacks sustainability and merely prolongs failure. Dr. Luttwak sees disengagement, not withdrawal, as the only reasonable plan that still safeguards Iraq’s borders and doesn’t needlessly abandon Iraq to chaos.

Before the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq had been something of a counterweight to Iranian power in the Middle East. Now with Saddam gone, Iranian political influence has been expanding, not just in Iraq, but in the region. As VOA correspondent Gary Thomas reports, Saudi Arabia is not happy about the shift in what had been a delicate balance of power.

Empowering Iran was not one of aims of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, analysts say, it has become one of its unintended consequences.

Under Saudi auspices in the holy city of Mecca, overlooking the sacred Kaaba stone, Palestinian Fatah and Hamas leaderships finally reached a power-sharing deal last week. The deal came 13 months after the Hamas victory in Palestinian legislative elections, and the party’s subsequent inability to form a functioning government in the face of an international boycott, Arab opposition, and an ongoing standoff with President Abbas and his Fatah movement.

By the third week of August, Beirut’s trendy Gemmayzeh Cafe was once more full of revelers. It was the first time live music had been back since the war, and as the beers were poured and narghiles lit, an oud player finished tuning his instrument and began strumming. "God be with you, oh steadfast south," he wailed in a low voice, and the crowd of 200 or so cheered at the tribute -- an old song, by the famed Wadi al-Safi, for this was not the first war southern Lebanon had endured.

The United States is promising an "intense" diplomatic drive in the Middle East, hoping to buck regional skepticism and its own weakened position by cracking open the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock.

With US troops mired in Iraq after nearly four bloody years, the White House turning up the heat on Iran and Syria, and Lebanon on a political knife edge, the prospect of peace dawning anywhere in the region appears slim.

President George W. Bush, setting out his new strategy for Iraq on Wednesday night, appeared set to ignore the advice of allies and the Baker-Hamilton commission by pursuing a policy of isolating and containing Iran and Syria, and by refusing to accept any linkage with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Iran and Syria were warned not to fuel the sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq, with the president signalling in a hardline speech on Wednesday night that the US was prepared for possible military intervention against their activities....

While there are deep and divisive fissures across the political spectrum over how to combat terrorism, there is a surprising level of agreement as to its cause. "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror," George W. Bush told an audience in Mexico in 2002. "Today, billions of people live on the knife’s edge of survival, trapped in a struggle against ignorance, poverty, and disease. Their misery is a breeding ground for the hatred peddled by bin Laden and other merchants of death," Howard Dean declared during his 2004 presidential run.

There once was a sheikh who dreamed big. His realm, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, was a sleepy, sun-scorched village occupied by pearl divers, fishermen, and traders who docked their ramshackle dhowsand fishing boats along a narrow creek that snaked through town. But where others saw only a brackish creek, this sheikh, Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum, saw a highway to the world.