Obama Won’t Intervene in Syria, Iran
Without UN backing, the Obama administration backed down regarding Syria and — as Scoblete says, ‘absent some dramatic event’ — it is likely that the US president will do the same when it comes to attacking Iran.
Quartet’s New “Peace Initiative”
It is not surprising reading the news, after the Palestinian Authority’s bid at the United Nations, that the Quartet came out with a “new idea.” It is a nice mixture of the “same old garbage” with a tint of “we need to keep ourselves relevant.” The Quartet is this ad-hoc organization of the United States, … Read more
Obama’s Campaign Speech at the UN
My reactions to Obama’s speech at the UN went as follows: Obama said nothing relevant and used the UN as a platform for a reelection speech The part of the speech on Israel/Palestine should solidify Obama’s Israel credentials Obama moved from a man calling for peace (last year at the UN) to one concerned only … Read more
Is Obama the Most Pro-Israel President Ever?
Yesterday, I linked to the site of Amir Mizroch who called President Obama’s UN speech “the most pro-Israel speech [he thinks] anyone has heard at that world forum for a very long time.” Of course, this stands in stark contrast to the various folk who are trying to paint Obama as an Israel-hater. If there was … Read more
Obama’s UN Speech, Part II
Some more reactions from Obama’s speech at the UN earlier today. I wrote earlier that the speech was little more than a campaign speech that hit all the right notes for the domestic audience, but missed tremendously with the international audience (who were in front of Obama. At the UN.) Amir Mizroch watched the speech … Read more
Legal Implications on the Palestinian Bid in September and More…
As has been discussed by me in two parts (here and here) the Palestinian move at the UN in September is more a showcase than a real thought out political move. Each side has its reasons discussed in the two articles so I will not reanalyze these, but just add a few points. The first … Read more
Correcting Palestinian Myths, or Voldemort in Jerusalem
Daniel Levy has a post up on Foreign Policy that would be funny if it was not so depressing. Levy describes the American effort to pull some wool over the eyes of the rest of the Middle East Quartet (the EU, UN and Russia) concerning the Palestinian effort to win a UNGA resolution in … Read more
The Americanization of the Syrian Revolution
Several days ago, American ambassador to Syria was seen as little more than a ‘propaganda tool‘ for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to those Americans advocating for a stronger US reaction. Now, a couple of days after visiting the besieged city of Hama, Ford is seen in a very different light in the United States. … Read more
Rebuttal of Yonaton Touval’s Haaretz Article
As any reader of this blog knows I like to spend my time reading lots of articles that I disagree with. I will not go into the reasons why. Every now and again I get it in my head that I should create a blog piece about an article and let people see the inaccuracies … Read more
The Importance of Being Turkey
A while back I penned a piece highlighting the growing importance of Turkey both within the Middle East and for the United States. The country has the unique position of being both a NATO member with a strong democratic government as well as a popular regional leader that has fostered close ties with nearly all … Read more
Chris Keeler
Chris Whitman
