Oops, They Invaded the Wrong Country?
"Given that Iran was more of a threat, was the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq undertaken to have a “demonstration effect” to scare the stronger Iranians into better behavior? If so, the intervention seems to have had the counterproductive effect of spurring Iran to covertly accelerate its nuclear program. Also, it demonstrates only that the best way to fight the Americans is with guerrilla warfare. Anyway you cut it, the radical Iranian regime is the main beneficiary of the naively muscular U.S. policy toward Iraq."
Disengagement and democracy
"One way or another, the interaction between Israeli-Palestinian peace and the functioning or malfunctioning of democracy in both countries could not be more obvious. While the conventional wisdom of the Bush administration and many on the Israeli right holds that democracy--Palestinian, Iraqi--must precede peace and stability, this appears to be a luxury we in Israel are increasingly unable to afford. On the contrary, Israeli-Palestinian peace, or even far-reaching unilateral separation initiated by Israel, could have the beneficial effect on Israeli democracy of finally removing or at least minimizing a divisive political issue that has been stymieing the system for nearly two decades."
Saudi Arabia Could Use a New Young King
"The Saudi government is now in a bind. It is facing serious challenges from within and pressures from the U.S."
Economic problems and crippled security
"In spite of the seriousness of this crisis, it is a manageable crisis that can be contained by the different Palestinian groups and tendencies within the framework of the Palestinian political leadership. How can we be so sure? Simply because the Israeli offers creating these different reactions are not generous enough to justify this internal division."
Why are Americans & Iraqis dying?
"Powell stood before the world and declared the existence of WMD undeniable, based not on definitive evidence, but on one potentially drunk person’s unsubstantiated allegations. Worse still, this testimony was not something the American intelligence agencies received directly, but rather one achieved through another foreign government. And so, ladies and gentlemen, one of the ways in which the case for war was manufactured was done so by playing ‘broken telephone’ (these intelligence boys and girls sure have a lot of time on their hands)."
