We can only begin to imagine the despair now coursing through the veins of Arab reformers as they watch the unfolding of the future New Middle East. In Beirut, killers eliminated yet another critic of Syria’s strongman Bashar al-Assad, murdering Pierre Gemayel, a Christian cabinet member and a fierce critic of Syrian interference in Lebanon. Gemayel died in a hail of bullets just as the United States prepares to abandon the collapsing experiment to bring democracy to the Middle East, aiming to replace it with a return to the old-style “realpolitik” of making friends with distasteful characters, regardless of what [...]
LONDON — British officials believe an American exit from Iraq will be the goal of a new Bush strategy in the war, and defense sources in London were quoted in the British press Sunday as saying Britain will be doing the same with its 7,500 troops currently in southern Iraq. According to a report in the London Sunday Times, “senior sources” have been saying for some time that British Prime Minister Tony Blair postponed a phased drawdown of his country’s Iraq contingent because “he was reluctant to embarrass Bush before last week’s elections.” Now, however, reports say the British pullout [...]
The news last week that six Arab states are beginning efforts to acquire nuclear technology — although the technology is ostensibly for civil power generation — is stark evidence that non-proliferation efforts around the world must not be neglected. The world has been focused on the Oct. 9 North Korean nuclear test and the Iranian nuclear program and its regional consequences. But the threat of nuclear proliferation is not limited to Asia and the Middle East. South America also poses a threat. South American allies Argentina and Brazil abandoned their relatively advanced nuclear weapons programs, signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) [...]
