The last few days seems to have witnessed an expected resuscitation of the international campaign to isolate the Syrian regime. The move comes in the heels of the report issued by Terje Rod Larsen with regard to UN Resolution 1559, and is not really unexpected. For as most observers realize by now, a lull in pressures against the Syrian regime does not mean a reversal of policy on part of the international actors involved. Frankly, the anti-regime policies seem to be set in stone now, for the regime is defunct and the fact of it has become all too visible. Continue reading “Endgame Looming!”
Category: Regional & International Politics
Dissent and Reform in the Arab World
An American Enterprise Institute event
Rather than impose democracy on the Arab world, the United States seeks to support the building blocks for political and economic reform that already exist throughout the region. But as the first installment in AEI’s Dissent and Reform in the Arab World conference series has shown, the brave and bright reformers at the heart of democratic change have little political space with which to work and grow. Continue reading “Dissent and Reform in the Arab World”
Setting Up Priorities!
It is not clear to me yet whether all this grandstanding by the US and Israel vis-à-vis Hamas will actually amount to a full-fledged boycott. I hope not. Because moving against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran at the same time is simply untenable. The US has to prioritize, and has to prioritize right.
Hamas and Hezbollah (and Muqtada al-Sadr too, for he represents a part of the extremists’ alliance) can be neutralized through developments in the internal affairs of their countries, so that the focus should remain on Syria and, more importantly, Iran. Continue reading “Setting Up Priorities!”
Managing our way through! – A few thoughts on the nature of our current dilemma
First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations
Interest, principle, reality and time. What do we do when all these things conflict, and begin to push and pull us in different directions? How can we manage the crises that emanate from the complex interactions of these basic facts of our daily subsistence, our historical journey, our ongoing quest to know who we are, our continuing experimentation with the fabric of life and existence, in a desperate attempt at self-actuation and self-actualization? Continue reading “Managing our way through! – A few thoughts on the nature of our current dilemma”
