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Friday
Sep212012

US Politics Feature: "Who was the Best Foreign Policy President?" --- Scott Lucas with CNN

Ronald Reagan amid the Iran-Contra scandal, 1986 (Photo: Dennis Cook/AP)


On Thursday, CNN's Global Public Square posted the responses of eight historians and analysts to the question, "Who Was the Best Foreign Policy President?" A majority named Franklin D. Roosevelt, but there was also a high level of support for the first George Bush (no one named the second one). One commentator named Ronald Reagan, a response matched by Thomas Jefferson and my friend David Ryan's selection of Jimmy Carter.

Then, at the end, I spoiled the party....

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Friday
Sep212012

Syria Feature: Who Are the Jihadists? (O'Bagy)

Insurgents at a funeral in Aleppo Province with Islamic flag, 16 September 2012 (Photo: Zain Karam/Reuters)


The regime’s insistence that jihadist radicals and terrorists instigated and perpetuated the Syrian conflict is indefensible. The Syrian uprising began as a popular resistance against autocracy. Yet as the conflict drags on, a radical Islamist dynamic has emerged within the opposition, and it warrants further scrutiny. The vast majority of syrians opposing the regime are local revolutionaries who espouse varying degrees of personal religious fervor. However, there is a small but growing Salafi-jihadist presence inside Syria. The Syrian Salafi-jihadists have been aided by foreign fighters, some with significant capabilities and connections to al-Qaeda and other international jihadist networks. Their presence among the opposition galvanizes Assad’s support base and complicates U.S. involvement in the conflict.

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Thursday
Sep202012

Iran Analysis: Assessing A Nuclear Warning from Tehran

UPDATE 1510 GMT: Many Western outlets have picked up on an extract from an interview of Abbasi Davani by Al Hayat in which the head of the Atomic Energy Organization that Iran intentionally passed misleading information to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

That declaration inevitably has led to assertions of Iran's deceit over its nuclear programme. However, it needs to be considered in conjunction with Abbasi Davani's asssertion that the IAEA has been penetrated by operatives of foreign intelligence services or has passed data to those agencies. In other words, the Iranian "deception" is a necessary defence to prevent espionage via the IAEA.


Fereydoun Abbasi DavaniTehran's approach has been over-interpreted by some leading analysts. For example, they assessed a weekend warning by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization --- ignoring his "carrot" about limiting uranium enrichment --- as the prospect that Iran would leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It will not, at least not at least not in the foreseeable future. However, the Islamic Republic is also signalling that it will not concede to the US-European demand that Tehran offers a notable concession before high-level talks resume. And that in turn means that the political stalemate, the sanctions hampering Iran's economy, and the carrot-and-stick rhetoric will continue.

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Thursday
Sep202012

The Latest from Iran (20 September): The Currency "Situation"

Nikahang Kowsar looks at President Ahmadinejad's visit next week to New York for the United Nations General Assembly --- Statue of Liberty: "Mamouti, take your halo and go away!"

See also Iran Analysis: Assessing A Nuclear Warning from Tehran
Iran Feature: How Mitt Romney Got It Wrong on Tehran's "Dirty Bomb"
Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Iran's Political Diversion
The Latest from Iran (19 September): Another Regime Move on Syria


2020 GMT: Economy Watch. Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has stated that "rising prices are putting people under pressure". He criticised the Goverment's management of the economy: "the President mustn’t make decisions alone".

1630 GMT: Assurance of the Day. Inspector General Mostafa Pourmohammadi has claimed that 5% inflation will cause a crisis in Europe, but people in Iran stay calm even with 40% inflation.

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Thursday
Sep202012

Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Iran's Political Diversion

2011 GMT: Syria. While violence is still reported in Aleppo, Homs, and Deir Ez Zor, it appears there has been a last-minute escalation west of Damascus. Artillery fire, coming from the Mezzeh military base, has reportedly targeted Moudamya. Four people have been killed there, and many wounded, as a result of the shelling.

This video reportedly shows fires burning in Mezzeh, the result of shelling. Obviously, because of the darkness, there is no way to verify the location:

1809 GMT: Syria. The LCC has raised today's death toll to 203:

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Thursday
Sep202012

Iran Feature: How Mitt Romney Got It Wrong on Tehran's "Dirty Bomb" (Cirincione)


Governor Mitt Romney's description, caught on video, of what he considered the real nuclear threat from Iran has further undermined his national security credentials, showing a fundamental misunderstanding of nuclear threats. Iran's nuclear program has nothing to do with dirty bombs. Terrorists would not use uranium -- from Iran or anywhere else -- in a dirty bomb. It is unclear if Gov. Romney was just riffing, or if his advisors had fed him this line of attack. But it is dead wrong.

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Thursday
Sep202012

Bahrain 1st-Hand: A Protest Weekend in Sanabis 

Protest march along Budaiya Highway, 14 September 2012


"We need supplies," said the doctor, "Who can go get them?" One activist, a computer engineer in his 20s, quickly volunteered and invited me to go with him. It was nearly midnight and the injuries were piling into the makeshift medical clinic in a home in the Sanabis village, a suburb of Manama, the Bahraini capital. Injured protesters couldn't be brought to hospitals or medical centres where they'd likely be arrested, so they were treated inside the villages. Volunteer medics were out of burn ointment and IV syringes, and needed someone to bring them from another makeshift clinic on the other side of the village.
 
There was a rare silence outside on the street. The protesters, mostly shabab (youth), had been dispersed only minutes earlier when dozens of police stormed through firing tear gas, rubber bullets and bird shot. The stench of gas still lingered; it never really disappeared fully from Sanabis during the two days of protests there.

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Wednesday
Sep192012

Syria Feature: Saudi Arabia v. Qatar in the Arming of the Insurgents (Abouzeid)

Disorder and distrust plague two of the rebels’ international patrons: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two Gulf powerhouses are no longer on the same page when it comes to determining who among the plethora of mushrooming Syrian rebel groups should be armed. The rift surfaced in August, with the alleged Saudi and Qatari representatives in charge of funneling free weaponry to the rebels clearly backing different factions among the groups — including various shades of secular and Islamist militias — under the broad umbrella that is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

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Wednesday
Sep192012

EA Special: Mitt Romney's "Deviant" Politics, a Slain Ambassador, and the Death of American Objectivity


There are legitimate reasons to question the administration on many issues, including foreign policy. There are looming questions, like whether drone strikes in Yemen have made us safer, whether there should be intervention in Syria, or how the US can stop Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu from pre-emptively striking Iran and dragging us into a war that our military commanders do not want to fight. There are questions about Pakistan and Afghanistan, China and Mexico, Bahrain and Egypt and Libya. But we're not discussing these because, rather than confront President Obama within the sphere of legitimate controversy, Romney and the GOP have resorted to pulling our entire political dialogue into the sphere of deviance.

This has dangerous implications for American politics. And the media has played an important role in the downward spiral. Terrible daily coverage of the Middle East has led to sensational coverage of events that are more drama than substance. At the same time, a fear of confronting deviance has lent legitimacy to questions that are not legitimate. Those wishing to exploit the media's fear of perceived bias have poisoned the well of public discourse, and the media has distributed the water because, well, they think that it is their job.

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Wednesday
Sep192012

Bahrain Feature: Today's United Nations Review of the Regime and Human Rights

The most dramatic moment of the hearing occurred when Dr Nada Dhaif --- sentenced to a long prison sentence in 2011 by a military court, with the term revoked this summer on appeal --- challenged the Bahraini Foreign Minister: "We hold you responsible in front of the [Human Rights Council today."

The Foreign Minister, "shaken from the speech", insisted no one was being detained "for free expression": "We had a human rights situation and we are dealing with it." He then made his headline announcement --- whether it was planned in advance or in response to the pressure in the hearing, we do not know --- that the regime will now accept the visit of a UN Special Rapporteur.

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