Humanitarian Disaster And Political Illusion

The continuing carnage and atrocities sweeping across Syria and the savagery committed against innocent men, women and children defy the most nightmarish dehumanization committed by one against another. A government that slaughters its people and maims a whole generation is not a government with whom to negotiate. It is nothing short of travesty that the…

May 21, 2013 Read more

Mastering The Nuclear Chess Game

Iran may have not invented Chess, but it has nevertheless demonstrated unsurpassed skills in playing the nuclear chess game against the P5+1 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) and especially against the US. From the time it was discovered that Iran was operating a clandestine nuclear weapons program nearly two decades ago, Tehran has…

April 18, 2013 Read more

In Support Of Direct U.S.-Iran Talks

Widely spread rumors circulating within the media in recent days suggest that the United States and Iran have agreed to enter into bilateral talks soon after the U.S. presidential elections in an effort to end the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. suspects is designed to produce nuclear weapons—a suspicion Iran emphatically refutes….

November 5, 2012 Read more

Israel’s Posturing: Behind Netanyahu And Barak’s Threats To Attack Iran

Successive Israeli governments have consistently inhibited in the past any public discussion about Iran’s nuclear program and what Israel might do to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In recent weeks however, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak have been openly discussing the issue while intimating their readiness to take whatever actions necessary to…

August 21, 2012 Read more

Iran’s Intervention In Syria Must Be Stopped

As the situation in Syria continues to deteriorate with the collapse of the Assad regime becoming increasingly more imminent, further direct intervention by Iran in the Syrian conflict in an effort to save the regime should not be ruled out. For Iran, the Assad regime represents the linchpin to their regional hegemonic ambitions and as…

August 9, 2012 Read more

Why Attacking Iran Is Becoming More Likely

The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program during the past few months have produced nothing more than a diplomatic dance in the face of persistent Iranian ploys for time coupled with intransigence on key issues. In failing to reach a negotiated settlement, the conflict with Tehran is inching closer toward a point of no return, where Israel might decide that the circumstances warrant a unilateral attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Although there are other scenarios under which Israel may decide to attack Iran, chief among them is Israel’s fear that Iran is close to reaching what Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak terms, “a zone of immunity.” Under such circumstances and given more time, Iran would be in a position to store much of its previous enriched uranium, as well as its high quality centrifuges, deep inside the mountain base of Fordow, thus becoming completely immune from aerial bombardment.
    
This objective, which Tehran is hard at work in seeking to achieve, limits how much time Israel would have before it acts. This Israeli concern makes the continuing diplomatic efforts coupled with sanctions advocated by the Obama administration unviable options and might in fact be extremely risky to pursue. The Netanyahu government is absolutely convinced that Iran will continue to play for time as it has over the past several years, during which time Tehran has considerably advanced its nuclear program in defiance of the IAEA and in spite of severe sanctions.

June 19, 2012 Read more

Egypt Can Rise To The Historical Ooccasion But It Must Choose Wisely

A few days after the Egyptian uprising, I argued that the Arab Spring could well turn into a long and cruel winter due to a host of prominent factors including: the lack of traditional liberalism, the elites’ control of business, a military that clings to power, and the religious divide and Islamic extremism. These factors are making the transformation into a more reformist governance (slow, filled with hurdles and punctuated with intense violence) much to the chagrin of Utopian-minded Western governments who thought that the transition to democracy would be attainable within months. If and when the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the ruling Military Council reach a power-sharing agreement, the situation will continue to unravel and be punctuated by chaos and accompanied by violence.

March 5, 2012 Read more

Iran: Obama’s Indecisiveness Makes Israeli Strike Likely

The failure of President Obama to impose crippling sanctions a few months after assuming office in 2009 makes the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran nuclear facilities in the coming few months increasingly more likely. To prevent Israel from taking unilateral action against Iran, the Obama administration must insist that any resumption of negotiations is conditioned upon the immediate suspension of all uranium enrichment activities and acceptance of complete oversight from the International Atomic and Energy Agency (IAEA). Otherwise, the U.S. will have to deal with the serious repercussions of potentially a major conflagration in the Middle East with its unpredictably dire consequences.

February 28, 2012 Read more

End The Slaughter In Syria While Isolating Iran

Seldom has the dividing line between the forces of moderation and the forces of extremism been so clear in the Middle East. The extremist anti-West, Iran-led Shiite Crescent, consisting of Iraq (largely operating at Iran’s behest), Syria, and Lebanon, heavily subsidized by Tehran with political capital and financial resources for the past three decades, is now under serious threat of collapse thanks to the crack in its most critical link: Syria’s Assad regime. On the other hand, the human tragedy in Syria has created a rare common interest between the old and the new Arab regimes, Turkey, the US, and the EU for the potential emergence of a representative government in Damascus.

February 21, 2012 Read more
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