All of a sudden, the Strait of Hormuz has become the most combustible spot on the planet, the most likely place to witness a major conflict between well-armed adversaries. Why, of all locales, has it become so explosive?
Archives for January 2012
Syria’s Crisis Deepens: Does Internationalization Loom?
The events of the past five days in Syria may be a game changer, both domestically and internationally. Last Thursday, opposition forces said, 100 people were killed. Massacres were alleged in two towns. The daily death toll has been rising. On yesterday, Monday, AFP reported another 29 persons killed, including 23 civilians and 6 members […]
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Iran Through the Looking Glass
Reverse the story, though, and it immediately becomes a malign, if unimaginable, fairy tale. Of course, no Iranian elite forces will ever operate along the U.S. border…
Can Obama Prevail against a Romney-Netanyahu Ticket? – Robertson
John Robertson writes in a guest column for Informed Comment CAN OBAMA PREVAIL AGAINST A ROMNEY-NETANYAHU TICKET? Paul Pillar and Leslie Gelb – both of them well-respected and largely mainstream commentators on US foreign policy – have recently published essays cautioning us all – and Mr. Obama especially – to step back, breathe deeply, ask […]
The Way Forward in the Middle East — Peled & Peled
Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled write in a guest column for Informed Comment The Way Forward in the Middle East Reversing a bi-partisan US policy in effect for the last two decades, the Republican National Committee recently endorsed the one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, resolving that “peace can be afforded the [Middle east] […]
Béji: “We are all Tunisian Jews”
Hélé Béji, a prominent woman writer from an old notable family in Tunis, was outraged by an incident in early January when a small crowd of religious extremists at the airport in Tunis to greet a visiting Hamas leader chanted “Death to the Jews.” She published this cry of the heart in Le Monde on […]
GOP Candidates Harm Israeli Security by Pushing for Impractical “Greater Israel”
The Republican candidates for president once again tried to out-do the Likud Party in their devotion to the doctrine of the Iron Wall and their attempt to erase the Palestinian people from history and justify their being kept in a condition of statelessness and lack of citizenship in any state. (The first thing the National […]
Egyptian Crowds in Tahrir Insist the Revolution will Continue
Perhaps 100,000 Egyptians came out on Wednesday in Tahrir Square in Cairo to mark the anniversary of the first massive protest that led to the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak. There was also a huge crowd in Alexandria, Egypt’s second city. But the gathering was not simply a commemoration. The revolutionary youth used the occasion […]
SOTU and a Destabilized Middle East
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address treated the Middle East at several points, underlining the unusual importance of this region to the United States. Obama began by celebrating the end of the Iraq War and of the presence of US troops in that country. Although Obama might have been open to US forces […]