Mr Obama must take a stand against Israel over Iran. US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy | World news. A little-known fact about Richard Perle, the leading advocate of hardline policies at the Pentagon, is that he once wrote a political thriller. The book, appropriately called Hard Line, is set in the days of the cold war with the Soviet Union. Its hero is a male senior official at the Pentagon, working late into the night and battling almost single-handedly to rescue the US from liberal wimps at the state department who want to sign away America's nuclear deterrent in a disarmament deal with the Russians. Ten years on Mr Perle finds himself cast in the real-life role of his fictional hero - except that the Russians are no longer a threat, so he has to make do with the Iraqis, the Saudis and terrorism in general.
In real life too, Mr Perle is not fighting his battle single-handed. The network centres on research institutes - thinktanks that attempt to influence government policy and are funded by tax-deductible gifts from unidentified donors. US Election Note: Middle East Policy after 2012. US on UN Veto: "Disgusting," "Shameful," "Deplorable," "a Travesty" . . . . Really? A Quick Listing of The United States' Record of Veto Use at the United Nations (UN): 1972–2011*[Including Resolutions against Decades of Atrocities and Violations, Often Supported and/or Bankrolled by the United States] Year Resolution Vetoed by the United States 1972 Condemns Israel for killing hundreds of people in Syria and Lebanon in air raids. 1973 Affirms the rights of the Palestinians and calls on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. 1976 Condemns Israel for attacking Lebanese civilians. 1976 Condemns Israel for building settlements in the occupied territories. 1976 Calls for self determination for the Palestinians. 1976 Affirms the rights of the Palestinians. 1978 Urges the permanent members (USA, USSR, UK, France, China) to insure UN decisions on the maintenance of international peace and security. 1978 Criticises the living conditions of the Palestinians. 1978 Condemns the Israeli human rights record in occupied territories. 1979 Offers assistance to the Palestinian people.
42 reasons to dismiss Susan Rice’s rage. Khoury - Susan Rice's Rage. I chuckled softly to myself last week when I followed the news coverage of how angrily the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, condemned the Russian and Chinese vetoes of a Security Council resolution that sought to end the escalating conflict in Syria. The media emphasized that Rice was really, really angry, as only a righteous American ambassador can be when condemning moves by other great powers to use their veto to stop collective action by the council in the service of applying the rule of law. Rice said that she was “disgusted” by the double veto, and added that, “A couple of members of this council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant.”
She was correct, of course, and we should all share her anger at the double veto, because the ongoing killings by all sides in Syria are unacceptable by any standards. Yet I chuckle nevertheless, because am not sure whether we should assess Ms. Rami G. Juan Cole: Logical Errors in GOP Debate on the Middle East. Photograph via Flickr by IowaPolitics. Why Gingrich’s claims are fallacies and card-stacking. By **Juan Cole** By arrangement with Juan Cole. The candidates to be the Republican standard bearer in this year’s presidential campaign addressed Iran and Syria in the course of their debate. Except for Ron Paul, they resorted to propaganda and logical fallacies. This use of erroneous arguments by canny men who have been in positions of high responsibility can only be explained if we assume ulterior motives.
That is, they have actual reasons for wanting to do something that are not acceptable to the public, so they have to promote their policies dishonestly. All but Paul virtually promised the U.S. public that they would go to war with Iran if elected. Gingrich then, having completely misrepresented Ahmadinejad, ends by saying it would be wise to “believe dictators.” Newt Gingrich was the first to take the Iran question. Gingrich begins with name calling, to appeal to the emotions. The post-American Middle East - Empire. For generations the Middle East has served as a setting for the grand narratives of American imperial power. US presidents have had a long-standing and complex relationship with Arab leaders, often playing puppet-master to the proxies and despots they put in power to look out for US interests. The Arab Spring ushered in the debut performance of a new player: The Arab people themselves.
And they are loud, clear, and unabashed about their desire to take the front seat in the policies and procedures of their region. From attacked embassies to unwinnable wars, the Arab world is quickly and deftly slipping out of US control and the power the US has enjoyed in the Middle East may finally be reaching an end. As the Arab people begin to proactively tell their leaders and the world what they want, the question now becomes how the US, so accustomed to directing the region as it pleases, will deal with its diminishing power.
The Afghan War. To sort.. US / Egypt relations. US / Saudi Relations. U.S. / Yemen relations. US / Bahrain Relations... US / Iran relations. US / Iraq relations... US / Israel relations. The pro-israel lobby in the US. Prioritizing Democracy: How the Next President Should Re-Orient U.S. Policy in the Middle East. Editor's Note: The following is a Campaign 2012 policy brief by Shadi Hamid proposing ideas for the next president on U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Tamara Wittes prepared a response arguing that the next president must remain flexible in response to the political instability throughout the region. Raj Desai also prepared a response arguing that the next administration should focus on economic development in the region in order to drive democracy and rebuild America’s influence. It seems unlikely that U.S. policy toward the Middle East will get much attention during the 2012 presidential campaign, especially when it comes to the epochal transformations under way in the Arab world, colloquially referred to as the “Arab Spring.” It received painfully little airtime as the various Republican contenders jostled for their party nomination. There may be some discussion of how best to confront Iran. Whether Obama is reelected or replaced by a Republican, the United States must: The Nature of Oil: Reconsidering American Power in the Middle East.
Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. New York: Verso, 2011. Toby Craig Jones, Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. Robert Vitalis, American Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006. For most of those who consider themselves politically liberal, oil—along with environmental degradation and foreign occupation—form a kind of political axis of evil on the American political landscape. In the past few years, three new books in Middle Eastern studies have complicated this picture considerably. Robert Vitalis’ American Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier effectively destroys the notion that ARAMCO represented a benevolent corporation committed to the “social uplift” of its employees. Of the three books, Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil makes the most far-reaching claims for the importance of oil.
The Arab Spring, US foreign policy, the Status-Quo Lobby and the Dream Palace of the Zionists. I'd like to touch upon America and Egypt, because I've seen a lot of hand-wringing in American newspapers about the future of that relationship and a sense of misplaced buyers' remorse about the Egyptian revolution – misplaced because the US had little to do with the revolution, and because it is wrong-headed thinking about an unstoppable, irreversible event.
Generally speaking, the American foreign policy establishment is stuck on Egypt. It is having a hard time imagining a different Middle East. Its path of least resistance is banking on their financial and political relationship with the generals now in charge and maintaining the ability to project power in the region that it has had since 1945 to some extent and since 1990 in particular. If it continues on this path, which is unfortunately likely, because of the dearth of imagination in a foreign policy elite that has grown lazy in its imperial thinking, and because of the dire state of American politics, it will fail. Distorted U.S. views of Arabs persist. I was in the United States 16 months ago when an Egyptian national popular uprising forced Hosni Mubarak to quit the presidency. And I was in the United States again this week when Mohammed Mursi was elected as the new Egyptian president.
Then and now, Americans remain unsure about how to react to the popular revolutions that felled their longtime autocratic Arab allies, who in most cases were replaced by more legitimate, Islamist-led governments. At the same time, though, Americans – who helped to define the modern revolutionary and democratic era in the 18th century – instinctively tend to support national populist revolutions that create government systems based on the consent of the governed and democratic electoral pluralism. When Arabs carry out these revolutionary and democratic endeavors, however, American society reacts with obvious hesitancy alongside the flashes of enthusiasm. Many things were wrong with this sentence and the perceptions that underpin it. Moderate?