A Beginner's Tour of the US Elections: The Tea Party, "Kooks", and the Senate Race in Kentucky

How can I not like Kentucky? Home of bourbon whisky, the Derby, and bluegrass music, three of the staples of civilised living all found in one state. A perfect day could well consist of sitting at Churchill Downs reviewing the horse-racing programme, sipping a Maker’s Mark while the locals enjoy their mint juleps, and listening to an old-style jug band.

Wrongly or rightly, Kentucky enjoys the reputation of a polite, well-mannered state where the Southern virtues of relaxed refinement and civility still persist.

It is a sign of the threat to the character of Kentucky that the Senate race in the state is turning increasingly bitter and bad-tempered. On Sunday night, the two candidates held a debate where Rand Paul, the tea party-backed Republican, asked his Democrat opponent Jack Conway: “Have you no decency? Have you no shame?"

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Egypt Witness: "Political Truthiness" in Cairo (Cook)

[Editor's Note: Yesterday the party of President Mubarak announced that the 82-year-old will run for a sixth term.]

There are creepy things about Egypt, but we aren’t talking about North Korea, after all. So instead of lies you get truthiness: “Egypt is an emerging democracy with 24 legal political parties and 250 newspapers and magazines. The fact that people are asking questions about succession is indicative of how far the leadership is willing to go to reform Egypt. The development of democracy will take a long time; things are not perfect, but Egypt’s come a long way in the last 10 years. President Hosni Mubarak is a transitional figure.” With the exception of the last one, each of these statements contains an element of truth even though they hardly tell the whole story. Still, it seems to be enough for the regime’s constituents. What does it matter really when one’s profits are up 30 percent a year or your ministry’s share of the state budget grows bigger or those shiny new F-16s arrive or you get to be a media personality?

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Terrorism Weekly: The CIA's Failure to Get Inside Al Qa'eda

This past week, amidst around-the-clock reports of government budget cuts, an American story made it into the BBC’s top 5 news items. The surprise entry? An internal CIA investigation into an attack in Afghanistan in December 2007 in which a suicide bomber killed 7 Agency officers.

The bomber was a Jordanian, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who was being used as a Jordanian and CIA informer in the hunt for senior al-Qaeda members, in particular Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Unbeknownst to the CIA, because the Agency hadn’t properly vetted al-Balawi, his loyalty remained to the terrorists.

The media coverage, not surprisingly, focused on the CIA’s culpability, as the Agency announced twenty-three changes to ensure such a mistake could not happen again. (I confidently predict that eventually these changes will be derided as having made the CIA, in its use of informers, gun-shy and reactive --- there was a backlash after the CIA brought in new regulations when it emerged that an Agency informer in the Guatemalan military had been involved in the murder of a spouse of an American citizen.)

Missing in the chatter is how the CIA found itself in this position in the first place and what the incident says about the difficulty of counter-terrorism efforts against al-Qaeda.

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China Economy Weekly: Sino-US Economic Ties; Exchange Rate Moves; Beijing Stake in US Gas and Oil

China Rejects US Clean Energy Probe:  China's Ministry of Commerce has hit back on Sunday at US plans toinvestigate its clean energy policies, calling the move "groundless and irresponsible".

The US move against China's clean energy sector came on the same day that the US Treasury Department postponed, for at least a month, a report on whether China is manipulating its currency for an unfair trade advantage.

The US Treasury said it was withholding its semi-annual report on foreign exchange rate practices until crucial summits are held in November, giving diplomatic pressure on China more time to achieve results.

VP Erges Closer Financial, Economic Ties with US:  Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping pledged Wednesday to enhance bilateral ties with the United States while urging closer financial, economic and trade cooperation between the two nations.

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Iran and Sanctions: EA's Scott Lucas on Al Jazeera English

I will be appearing today at 1730 GMT on Al Jazeera English's Inside Story, discussing sanctions and Iran. Professor Sadegh Zibakalam of Tehran University will also be commenting.

The Latest from Iran (21 October): What if Nothing Important Happens?

2115 GMT: Khamenei Roadtrip --- Media Lowlight of the Day. Oh, dear, a pretty spectacular MediaFail from Reuters who, rather than going to their Tehran correspondent, rely on their reporter in Paris to get the story all wrong:

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears to have scored a political success by gathering leading clerics in the holy city of Qom around him in a show of unity after months of in-fighting.

Iranian media highlighted pictures on Thursday of a smiling Khamenei sitting with several top Shi'ite Muslim dignitaries, including some who have been critical since the disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year....

Among the sages pictured sipping tea with Khamenei was Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, a critic of Ahmadinejad, along with five other clerics who have the elevated status of "marja-e taqlid" (source of emulation), meaning that Shi'ite Muslims may choose them as a personal spiritual guide.

Their turnout belied rumors that senior religious figures would boycott Khamenei's annual visit to the center of Shi'ite learning in protest at a fierce crackdown on reformists and moves to isolate and intimidate dissident clerics.

About the only accurate information in this is that Makarem-Shirazi was present on Wednesday. None of the others at the meeting have the rank of "marja-e taqlid" --- indeed, no cleric with that status apart from Makarem-Shirazi has deigned to see Ayatollah Khamenei in the first three days of his Qom visit.

Yet, as stunning as this failure is, it may be dwarfed by the misunderstanding of the "senior Western diplomat" who fed the Reuters story: "(Khamenei's) trip shows the leader has the power to unite factions ... and it is a message to those who hoped the in-fighting may lead to the collapse of the system."

2025 GMT: Did the Supreme Leader Just Smack Down the Senior Clerics? Well, this is an interesting way to end the evening....

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A Beginner's Tour of the US Elections: The Power of the Majority and the Senate Race in Nevada

The election in Nevada may well see the ousting of Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader, either by his loss to Angle or by the Republicans winning enough of the seven other toss-up seats to relegate him to a member of the minority. Either way, one thing is certain: neither party will achieve the super-majority of 60 Senators needed to ensure the passage of controversial legislation in the next Congress by defeating any filibuster. If Reid survives as Majority Leader, Democrats will have a greater chance of proposing liberal legislation, but as current Senate rules, they stand little chance of passing them. A Republican Majority Leader, despite the advantages of controlling the composition of Senate committees, will face a similar predicament when it comes to passing conservative legislation.

In fact, unless the Senate miraculously rediscovers the bipartisan tone of compromise it once possessed, it is hard to see what either party with a simple majority can hope to accomplish in the next two years.

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Afghanistan-Pakistan Analysis: Why is the US Shutting Islamabad Out of Peace Talks?

OK, get your head around this. In recent weeks, both political and military figures in the Obama Administration have swung behind negotiations between the insurgents and the Afghan Government, and NATO (read US-led) units have provided support to get Taliban leaders to the talks.

That part is not too challenging to comprehend. Here's the twist: Washington's alleged effort is not only to get the insurgents in but to keep the Pakistanis out.

The Karzai Government, while infuriating, has to be America's son-of-a-bitch for the sake of some alternative to endless intervention in Afghanistan. The Taliban and other Afghan insurgents may become another of our SOBs if they are ready to negotiate as well as fight. (Osama bin Laden is a largely irrelevant SOB.)

And Pakistan? Well, here's the tip-off from the latest possibility that Washington is supporting talks with the Afghan insurgency while shutting out Islamabad....

We're not sure they're our SOBs.

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Iran Snap Analysis: Khamenei's Offensive Stalls?

Only 48 hours after the start of the Supreme Leader's PR offensive in the religious centre of Qom, and its momentum appears to be slowing, if not stopping.

Tuesday's public setpiece of the reception for Ayatollah Khamenei and his speech was always going to provide positive images. The bigger political question was how he would be received in private by Qom's clerics.

Iranian state media struggled on Tuesday to put the gloss of unity on the first meeting, given the notable absences among the attendees --- e.g., all of Qom's maraje (sources of emulation) --- and Wednesday's second effort has made even less impression.

The most incisive coverage comes instead from a leading EA correspondent on Iran: " Looks like Khamenei's mighty propaganda machine finally scored a Pyrrhic victory. Even Makarem is not an extremely senior Ayatollah. Let's see if they drag Saanei, Shobeyri, Mousavi Ardabili, or any other of the big wigs into the frame tomorrow --- I strongly doubt it."

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Egypt Special: Why is Religion All Around? (Samir)

Dina Samir writes for EA:

From the ringtones on the mobile phones of Cairo's underground riders --- chiming out the Islamic call to prayer or Christian worship songs --- to religious products such as Islamic books to the preaching of a Muslim lady in the women-only carriage, a stranger can hear and feel religion in the air. Just one ride gives you Egyptians’ “religious mania,” a term used by various intellectuals to refer to an obsession among many Christians and Muslims in Egypt.

But why is religion all around? Professor Madgy Guirguis offers a challenging conclusion, “Since they cannot speak loud about political activism, corruption, inheritance of power, contemplating religion and football are the safe choices left for Egyptians.”

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