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Home Opinion Syndicated War and Peace

War and Peace

Obama’s Middle East

JERUSALEM - President-elect Barack Obama's plans for the Middle East, the region where his predecessor's policies shattered America's standing around the world as a benign superpower, represent a welcome departure from President Bush's grand design to redress the region's ills through "constructive chaos." Unfortunately, Obama's all-encompassing promises might prove to be just as unrealistic.

Obama's agenda is breathtaking. It includes extrication from the Iraqi morass and lifting its burden from America's foreign policy, resolving the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict while confronting the "hawkish" Israel lobby, using dialogue to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and wean Syria from its radical agenda - thereby dissolving the region's "axis of evil" (Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas) - freeing Lebanon from Syria's grip, and pushing for an Israel-Syria peace. And you can add to this a reorientation of America's military effort to the war in Afghanistan.

Last Updated ( Friday, 05 December 2008 09:32 )

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A Middle Eastern Union?

A Middle Eastern Union?

TOLEDO, SPAIN - This autumn, the Toledo International Centre for Peace convened a meeting devoted to water cooperation in the Middle East. One conclusion that emerged was that any effective response to the unequal distribution of natural resources in the region must be regional. With this idea in mind, Munther Haddadin, a former Jordanian minister of water resources, proposed for the Middle East a "Water and Energy Union," a long-term mechanism to integrate a fragmented region.

The idea is compelling. Attending to such basic needs in a way that manages scarcities and surpluses regionally has a powerful logic.

Last Updated ( Monday, 03 November 2008 08:50 )

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