tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338252992009-11-21T12:36:22.581-08:00News items from the Arabic-language press to help fill in the gapsbadgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.comBlogger917125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-18702091656381291172009-03-29T06:50:00.000-07:002009-03-29T13:31:20.857-07:00

AlQuds alArabi prints an op-ed by Egyptian writer Mohammed Diab called "Political writing, and the issue of Liberalism and its relationship to projects for change".He says political writing has become more like a form of armed combat than of civilized debate. The principles of tolerance, admission that true assertions can contain mistakes and vice versa, that circumstances can change truths

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-76668722808385648722009-03-28T09:53:00.000-07:002009-03-28T12:33:40.260-07:00

The announcement and interpretations of the Afghanistan/Pakistan "policy" have said nothing about those actual countries, and here is the reason: The problem--"how to make the US government move"--has now been solved, as the USIP dude says. “We have never seen this level of political attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is easy to underestimate how much that attention means.” Beyond the

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-39826179669228261382009-03-27T12:37:00.000-07:002009-03-27T13:46:49.172-07:00

Paul Krugman has famously complained of a feeling of policy-despair, and now in the Atlantic, a former chief economist at the IMF has a similar complaint. Without questioning the fact that they have good grounds for despair, I would like to point out that there is something funny here. Funny issue # 1Krugman, in the Japan crisis of the 90s, argued that the problem was entirely monetary, and

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-17948292768174094792009-03-27T02:46:00.000-07:002009-03-27T05:14:38.281-07:00

ObamaIn the first year, in the spring, the court was in declinethe poets were writing satire

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-1300803415559656632009-03-27T02:39:00.000-07:002009-03-27T12:35:22.846-07:00

is the road [to Sichuan, over the high mountains]more difficult than climbing the blue heaven...--Li Bai

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-85674013744493920992009-03-27T01:46:00.000-07:002009-03-27T12:33:50.664-07:00

colors

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-13774982269928886932009-03-23T03:10:00.000-07:002009-03-23T15:15:21.647-07:00

On March 19, Prime Minister Maliki's office issued a statement clarifying the meaning of his recent statements about an opening to those outside the political process, and in particular the ambiguous point about the Baath party as such, the Baath party under different names, ex-Baathists, guilty Baathists, and so on. And also the relevance or otherwise of talk about constitutional amendments

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-9809690313909194552009-03-22T15:43:00.000-07:002009-03-22T18:24:00.824-07:00

For what it's worth, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, 19-year-old up-and-coming blogger Ezra Klein explained why he was a strong supporter a US war against Iraq, despite his dislike of Bush, and the text is here (thanks to an alert commenter on his blog). (You have to scroll one-third of the way down, to March 6, 2003 post called: "Why the Hawks of the Left Must Not Falter"). Saddam, he

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-45851592472822915432009-03-21T15:23:00.000-07:002009-03-21T16:32:26.677-07:00

AlHayat prints the first installment of an extended interview with Ahmed Chalabi--it would be a tough job for some poor soul to translate, if anyone were to bother, let alone annotate with all the necessary caveats given the man's reputation. Meanwhile, the first thing that jumped out at As'ad AbuKhalil was Chalabi's mention of the famous "liberal" Kanaan Makiya as a co-conspirator with Chalabi

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-54072480072675425882009-03-20T09:45:00.001-07:002009-03-21T01:51:05.672-07:00

Too much has been made about the uniqueness of Jonathan Krohn, the gifted 14-year-old conservative thinker and talk-show radio orator featured in the NYT a few days ago. Because there's 24-year-old Ezra Klein, too, who writes: Sometimes I need to know about Pakistan before the ICG issues its report, explaining the usefulness of the secret-membership e-mail "JournoList" that he created. The

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-46614643966019992482009-03-19T05:42:00.000-07:002009-03-19T18:19:25.161-07:00

Nahrainnet.net, the Sadrist-leaning news-site, says this: In a serious followup to the recent reports that have spoken of an American/British plan to return the Baathists to the scene of power in Iraq, including participation in, or control of, the government, via what the General Secretary of the Arab League has called "the broadening of national reconciliation in Iraq", to include Baathists,

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-37350428889857287632009-03-17T16:56:00.000-07:002009-03-17T17:59:54.240-07:00

Iraqi writer Fadhil Al-Rubaie, continuing his series in the Qatari paper AlArab on Iraqi national policy, has some interesting observations on what people think the current American position is, and what it means.He describes discussion among expat Iraqis and others opposed to the occupation and the current political process. The discussions cover all kinds of "national reconciliation" issues,

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-58512897821207634452009-03-17T06:45:00.000-07:002009-03-17T08:18:47.504-07:00

(See also this piece by LB at RoadstoIraq. What I have tried to do here is merely spell out what could well be an Iranian view and/or Daawa-party view of what the American administration is currently up to in Iraq.) AlBayyana AlJadida, an Iraqi paper that supports the Daawa Party and Prime Minister Maliki, printed on its front page the other day a summary of what it describes as a plan being

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-10204924633617523252009-03-16T06:59:00.000-07:002009-03-16T07:44:18.472-07:00

Ignorant of Pakistan, feeling victimized by the corporate media coverage? Why not read the five comments on this post by Manan Ahmed, alias sepoy, where Pakistanis express their jubilation over the success of the Long March, even in the face of the "no clean hands" argument. Particularly the narrative of Omar Ali. And I thought: It has been a long time, maybe around 1968(?), since American

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-9677505830122336352009-03-13T07:28:00.000-07:002009-03-13T09:14:00.619-07:00

AlHayat this morning summarizes statements about the "Maliki to talk to Baathists" story, as follows:A spokesman for the De-Baathification Commission said as far as his agency is concerned, it has received no new instructions from Cabinet in connection with the recent reports about a supposed new attitude of the government to former Baathists, and the spokesman said the issue as far as his

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-18728559534817829292009-03-12T17:03:00.000-07:002009-03-12T19:01:58.004-07:00

No one can keep up with LB at RoadstoIraq when it comes to keeping track of interesting stories. She notes that AlArabOnline, following up on the original AlShorouq story, runs an opinion survey on its front page, that asks readers this: Stories of reconciliation in Iraq with the Baath party coincide with leaks about an American plan to revise their views of leaders in the Saddam government.

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-48856651125113209612009-03-12T13:02:00.000-07:002009-03-12T13:31:31.209-07:00

AlQuds AlArabi today refers to a planned "new" round of talks between representatives of Maliki and certain Baathists, something the journalist describes as the culmination of two years of communications between the two sides, adding that this round of talks will start with the wing closest to Syria. All of which suggests that this process dates back to the January 2007 split between the

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-24967014361266613052009-03-11T18:51:00.000-07:002009-03-12T03:37:51.059-07:00

It is an idea that seems to be catching on: If America and its "moderate Arab" friends want to create any kind of bulwark against expanded Iranian influence in the region following the US "withdrawal" from Iraq, this would have to involve some kind of fundamental re-structuring of the Iraqi political system. Or re-re-structuring you might say. De-Bremerizing. Or rehabilitating would be

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-58512505166903073652009-03-05T09:57:00.000-08:002009-03-05T11:12:33.697-08:00

If it were possible to reverse six years of sectarian political culture in a single year, the report released on Tuesday by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI, where Reidar Visser works) shows you what steps would have to be taken, and it explains why such steps are necessary. The report is a consensus compilation of the views of a number of Iraqi contributors (who are

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-31487758748346398392009-03-04T11:27:00.000-08:002009-03-04T16:08:48.972-08:00

I have concluded--very judiciously I think, and only after several years of doing this--that it doesn't matter, in American politics or public opinion, what opinions are expressed or by whom in the Arab world or the Arabic-language media if they do not completely dovetail with one or other of the prevailing opinions in the West.While you might think that respect and receptivity for alien

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-40388635765537476252009-03-02T03:47:00.000-08:002009-03-02T06:33:35.768-08:00

Reluctantly and unwillingly or voluntarily; by agreement and understanding and in the framework of the famous agreement with the Iraqis or without any deep consultation with them; with what they call a "gentleman" agreement with Iran or without one; the time has come for the story of Exodus of America from Iraq. Because in any event Obama has decided to exit from Iraq and to cross over into

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-7089846722962113652009-02-27T15:24:00.000-08:002009-02-27T16:57:26.200-08:00

Zaid Al-Zubaidi writes in AlAkhbar about anxiety on the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities over the security implications of the latest political development: namely Maliki's apparent move to ally with the Sadr trend in substitution for his prior alliance with the Supreme Council. Many have concluded that this means the return on the Mahdi Army, and already the result in some Sunni

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-41368555662226632852009-02-27T07:33:00.000-08:002009-02-27T09:23:25.156-08:00

Abdul Amir Al-Rikabi, an ex-pat Iraqi who has belonged to the anti-occupation Iraqi National Alliance aka Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, writes in AlQuds alArabi: The eagerness on the part of the Saudi authorities to convene a mini-summit in Riyadh probably has a lot to do with Iraq, and particularly with the changes in prospects resulting from the recent local elections, and the proposed US

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-11253956689223074592009-02-24T08:24:00.000-08:002009-03-02T18:42:29.776-08:00

There are a couple of odd coincidences in the recent report about Carole O'Leary's meeting with former-regime officers in Amman. The first is the invitation said to have been offered to the ex-officers to "offer their views and proposals for restoration of security and stability in Iraq", with the promise that these ideas would be reported to the Obama administration. The coincidence is that

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33825299.post-55702655956467043872009-02-23T05:49:00.000-08:002009-02-23T10:32:40.627-08:00

Qatari paper AlArab quotes sources who say the Maliki administration is preparing to disband the network of secret informants that was set up by the Americans right after the invasion, and that has been responsible for the assassination and unjust imprisonment of thousands of Iraqis, based on material and sectarian motives of the informants, described as the dregs of society. But at least one

badgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09427331679635818982noreply@blogger.com0