U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice drew many raised eyebrows when she predicted that the battle between Israel and Hezbollah marked the ‘birth pangs’ of a new Middle East. Maybe she was showing extraordinary prescience; maybe foolhardy optimism. Several weeks and hundreds of deaths after the conflict erupted, the path to a ‘new’ Middle East looks as treacherous as it has for a generation. The deck seems stacked against Secretary Rice’s hopeful forecast. The government of Israel is determined – and is solidly backed by public opinion at home – to put an end to the Hezbollah threat and thereby [...]
Time moves at a different pace in the Middle East. Believe it or not, it was only last March that Israeli voters elected Ehud Olmert and his new party, Kadima (Forward), to lead the country. During the campaign, Olmert, the heir apparent to the ailing former prime minister and army general Ariel Sharon, had spelled out his promise to pull most Israelis from the West Bank and draw the country’s permanent borders, without waiting for Palestinians to decide if they were ready to accept Israel’s right to exist. Since then, thousands of rockets have smashed into Israel, and the country’s [...]
Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is a city that brings to mind three images: hospitality, khachapuri (a delicious cheese-filled heart attack encased in dough), and George W. Bush, whose larger-than-life visage graced the surface of numerous billboards on the stretch of road that linked the airport to the city in August 2005. The billboards went up after Bush visited Georgia in May 2005, and not long after that, this main drag officially became “George W. Bush Street.” Cab drivers got a kick out of pointing to the billboards and giving Americans smiles — the type people give each other to [...]
