<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Commentary</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/mideast/opinion?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><description>Commentary</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[For Abe Pollin, Sweet Vindication]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7895-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7895-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Even those in Washington who don't pay much attention to sports remember the famous picture that appeared in this newspaper two years ago: Michael Jordan driving away from the MCI Center in his Mercedes convertible with the Illinois license plate, leaving the Washington Wizards in his rearview mirror. Minutes earlier, Jordan had been fired by Wizards owner Abe Pollin, who told him that he didn't want him returning to the job he'd abandoned as the team's CEO two years earlier to un-retire as a player for the third time.]]></description><author> John Feinstein</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Limited Study of Islam]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3018-2005Apr19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3018-2005Apr19.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ While I applaud the initiatives laid out by Peter Berkowitz and Michael McFaul in their April 12 op-ed,  "Studying Islam, Strengthening the Nation," I found it curious that they limited their reach to the geographic Middle East with regard to languages  --  Arabic, Persian (or Farsi) and Turkish.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Tenuous Mideast Spring]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64468-2005Apr18.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64468-2005Apr18.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  BEIRUT  --  The crowds were out in the streets here again last week, flocking to Martyrs'  Square, headquarters for Lebanon's "independence" movement for the past two months. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the country's devastating civil war, but the mood was festive: Parents led their children by the hand through thousands of young people who waved red-and-white Lebanese flags and danced in the streets as a popular singer belted out patriotic songs. Hundreds waited to pay tribute at the grave of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination launched the uprising; nearby, the outdoor cafes and restaurants he built over the war's rubble overflowed. The festival was organized in the name of Lebanese "unity"  --  and among these people, at least, it felt as if the mass movement that has arisen here, demanding an end to domination by Syria and the creation of a genuine democracy, was still going strong.]]></description><author> Jackson Diehl</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[What the West Owes the Iranian People]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57772-2005Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57772-2005Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Think back seven years to 1998, when the main hope for political reform in the broader Middle East was in Iran. A reform-minded cleric had swept aside the establishment's candidate in presidential elections, and his allies were about to make a similarly impressive showing in parliamentary elections. Independent newspapers and magazines were springing up, and the rigidities of authoritarian clerical rule were under attack by those espousing a liberal form of Islamic democracy.]]></description><author> Elah&#233; Sharifpour-Hicks</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Balancing Act in Gaza]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51670-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51670-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The Gaza Strip is now the pivot for the hopes of a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared in unison the other day. But to say this is to ask an elephant to balance on a peanut.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Disaster, Not Diplomacy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51669-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51669-2005Apr13.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  It is my impression  --  gleaned from reviews  --  that Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" posits that first impressions often are right on the nose. Nonetheless, for reasons having to do with caution, prudence and a debilitating sense of fair play, I have until now withheld my first  --  and only  --  impression of John Bolton, probably destined to be the next U.S.  ambassador to the United Nations: He's nuts.]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Studying Islam, Strengthening The Nation]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45302-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45302-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  It remains painfully true, more than three years after Sept. 11, that even highly educated Americans know little about the Arab Middle East. And it is embarrassing how little our universities have changed to educate our nation and train experts on the wider Middle East.]]></description><author> Peter Berkowitz and Michael McFaul</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sharon's Gamble Rides on Bush]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42689-2005Apr10.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42689-2005Apr10.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  A year ago this week Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Washington with a bold agenda: to obtain the support of President Bush for a unilateral Israeli solution to his country's conflict with the Palestinians. Abandoning a decade of efforts at negotiations  --  not to mention Bush's own "road map" for a two-state solution  --  Sharon aimed to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, then impose a border of Israel's choosing in the West Bank, fortified by walls and fences. Rather than seek accord with the Palestinians, whom he knew would never accept his terms, Sharon sought to anchor his initiative in a deal with Bush, whom he asked for an endorsement of Israel's eventual annexation of West Bank territory and its determination never to accept the return of Palestinian refugees. With diplomacy at an impasse and Yasser Arafat still master of his long-suffering people, Bush signed on.]]></description><author> Jackson Diehl</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Longer Your Iraq]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38710-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38710-2005Apr8.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Dear Saddam,<br>Yes, it has been a long time since I wrote. But then you were so hard to find for a while. And since you surfaced  --  in your case the word has real meaning  --  we have both been so busy. So let's calm down and catch up.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Plight of a Guantanamo Detainee]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40588-2005Apr9.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40588-2005Apr9.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  In her March 27 front-page story, "Panel Ignored Evidence on Detainee," Carol D. Leonnig referred to Murat  Kurnaz, seized in Pakistan in 2001 and now in detention at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, as a "German national." But Mr.  Kurnaz is a Turkish citizen, raised in Bremen, Germany, by his immigrant parents.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Failure of More Than Intelligence]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32733-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32733-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Shortly before the United States went to war in Iraq, I was in contact with a former member of the American intelligence community. This is what he told me: Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons program, no chemical or biological weapons program to speak of, and no link to al Qaeda. He said that if America invaded, it would cost us "perhaps 1,000 casualties" and would lead to prolonged "terrorism and harassment." I thanked him very much for his views  --  and urged the United States to attack anyway. Along with Don Quixote, I sometimes feel that facts are the enemy of truth.]]></description><author> Richard Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Backlash Paradox]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32734-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32734-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  The 21st century announces itself as an era of backlash and paradox. This owes much to an uneasily shifting equilibrium between religion and politics, a disturbed equilibrium that was on display this week in capitals as dissimilar as Rome, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Washington.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Future of the Past]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28417-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28417-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  At first glance, it looked to be a triumph of the human spirit. There, at a joint news conference last week in Jerusalem, stood the patriarchs of the rival faiths of the Middle East  --  Israel's chief rabbis, the deputy mufti of Jerusalem, leaders of the Catholic and Armenian churches  --  Jews, Muslims and Christians, together at last.]]></description><author> Harold Meyerson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peace in the Pipeline?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28416-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28416-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  When a new Iraqi government finally takes office, it will have in its "in-box" an economic proposal that touches on some of the country's most sensitive questions: How to reduce violence in the Sunni Triangle, how to manage the country's increasingly tense relationship with neighboring Jordan, and how to expand its oil production and exports.]]></description><author> David Ignatius</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Intelligence Critique Fatigue]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28418-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28418-2005Apr5.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[We can thank the well-publicized recent intelligence failures for one thing: the brand-new genre of the beautifully written intelligence critique. First came the report of the Sept. 11 commission, with its riveting narrative of the events surrounding the attacks. Now comes the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, co-chaired by retired judge Laurence Silberman and former senator Charles Robb. The heart of this report is another brilliant narrative, that of the mistakes  --  notably deception by the well-code-named spy "Curveball"  --  that convinced the intelligence community that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.]]></description><author> Richard A. Posner</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Strykers Get the Job Done]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26535-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26535-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ I am with the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, which has operated in Mosul, Iraq, since last October with 75 Strykers.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Listen  To Arab Voices]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26528-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26528-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   The third Arab Human Development Report, finally released by the U.N. Development Program after a lengthy controversy, should be required reading for Bush administration officials and for anyone interested in promoting Middle East democracy. The report reveals a complete acceptance of democratic principles and a complete mistrust of the Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy. This mixed message is at the heart of the conundrum the United States faces in pursuing a policy of political change in the Mideast.]]></description><author> Marina Ottaway</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Keeping  Covenant With Iraq]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20058-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20058-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Iraq is not yet free of Saddam Hussein or Jerry Bremer. The political ghosts of the murderous dictator and the well-meaning U.S. administrator stroll through Baghdad's corridors of stalemated power two years after liberation.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Syria and the New Axis of Evil]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17354-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17354-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Say what you will about Bashar Assad, dictator of Syria and perhaps the dimmest eye doctor ever produced by British medical schools, but subtle he is not. Since the huge street demonstrations against his occupation of Lebanon, three terrorist bombings have occurred there, all in heavily Christian, anti-Syrian neighborhoods. Only slightly less subtle was the nearly half-million-man Beirut rally demanding Syria's continued occupation, staged by Syria's Lebanese client, Hezbollah, followed by the "spontaneous" demonstration Assad orchestrated for himself in Damascus.]]></description><author> Charles Krauthammer</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fooling Ourselves]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17353-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17353-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/opinion</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:02:15 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  To the literature on deception in war we must now add a new chapter  --  on self-deception. For that is the ultimate explanation for how the American military went to war in Iraq in March 2003 equipped with gas masks and chemical-biological suits to protect itself against weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist.]]></description><author> David Ignatius</author></item></channel></rss>