Tag Archives: Middle East

International news

Barack and Bibi: Are they actually friends?

OK, so now it turns out that President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a better relationship than what’s been reported.

Is that the case?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/10/netanyahu-touts-obama-relationship-196593.html?hp=l10

It is, according to Netanyahu.

That’s good to know, given that the United States has so few dependable Middle East allies.

None of them compares with Israel, which has been at our side — and vice versa — since the founding of Israel more than six decades ago.

The supposed tension between the leaders has been the subject of much discussion over the years. Indeed, they’ve appeared to be at odds on occasion as it relates to U.S. views on Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank region and on how to achieve a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Netanyahu said Sunday on “Face the Nation” that the relationship is like that of an “old married couple.” He declared that he and the president have a “relationship of mutual respect and mutual appreciation.”

Can we expect them to be BFF’s — best friends, forever? Hardly. Mutual respect and appreciation, though, is pretty darn good in this troubling time in the region of the world where Netanyahu lives and works.

For his part, Obama has made it abundantly clear time and again: The United States stands solidly behind Israel and that alliance is unshakable and unbreakable.

There you have it.

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'Silver lining' showing up in Islamic State fight

President Obama sees a potential “silver lining” in the fight to eradicate the Islamic State.

It lies in capitals of Arab states that are joining the fight with the United States of America.

Obama sees ‘silver lining’ in ISIS fight

It’s time for those nations to declare war — or take hostile action of some sort — against terrorists who are perverting Islam into something that doesn’t resemble one of the world’s great religions.

The president spoke to a group of Democratic donors at a fundraiser and said, “We’re going to be able to build the kind of coalition that allows us to lead but also isn’t entirely dependent on what we do.”

Therein lies the potential silver lining.

For far too long these Islamic extremists have been declaring some kind of “holy war” against the “infidels” of the world. They have embarked on a campaign of terror in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, Sunni Arab states have been relatively quiet. They haven’t joined the fight in an active sense.

Today, just a few days after Obama announced his administration’s strategy to fight ISIL, a coalition is beginning to form and it is including Middle East nations with actual skin in this so-called game.

Yes, the United States can lead the coalition, but it cannot carry this fight all alone.

Let’s hope, therefore, that this coalition of Muslim nations not only holds up, but strengthens in its resolve to destroy terrorist groups that are harming them as much as they seek to harm The Great Satan.

International news

Arab states must join the fight agains ISIL

A 10-nation coalition of nations is forming to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

One key element is missing, however, from that “core” group of nations: Arab states.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/08/world/meast/isis-mideast-nations/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Indeed, among the nations listed in that roster of allies, Turkey — which borders Syria, and is a member of NATO — is the only nation with skin in the game.

President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel now need to enlist Arab states, particularly Sunni Muslim Arab states, to join this fight.

The president is going to lay out his strategy for fighting ISIL in a speech to the nation Wednesday night. He still has time before he issues the “Good evening, my fellow Americans” greeting to bring some key Arab allies into this fight.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Yemen are just six states that need to bring their own intelligence and military assets to bear against ISIL.

Of course, don’t think for a moment that the United States isn’t asking its most dependable Middle East ally — Israel — to lend its own immense intelligence capability to hunt down and destroy ISIL fighters wherever we can find them.

I’m going to await with interest to hear what the president will say Wednesday. One of my hopes will be that we can rally behind the commander in chief and dispense with the second-guessing, carping and partisan posturing that undermines the effort that needs to take place to destroy these monsters.

 

 

Intgernational news

Bibi declares victory over Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right to declare victory in his country’s fight with the terror group Hamas.

What’s more, Hamas would do well just to accept the prime minister’s claim of victory and then it should start thinking about how it’s going to stop provoking the kind of response it got from the pre-eminent military powerhouse in the Middle East.

http://news.msn.com/world/israeli-leader-declares-victory-in-gaza-war

A vague ceasefire has fallen over the region. Hamas started the mayhem by firing rockets into Israel. The Israelis responded the only way they could, with overwhelming force that sought to defend Israeli neighborhoods against the rocket fire reining down on them.

I continue to believe that Israel was the more righteous combatant here. Yes, the loss of civilian life was tragic. It also was avoidable, given that Hamas had positioned so many of its weapons among innocent bystanders. That’s the Hamas way. It’s also the modus operandi of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Is the ceasefire going to lead to a permanent peace agreement? Cynics say “no.” Don’t count me among the cynics. My inherently optimistic temperament makes me hold out hope that a third-party broker — say, Egypt — can bring the sides together to cobble some form of a peace agreement that begins to lay the foundation for something even more meaningful.

The Israelis have declared their intention repeatedly over many decades to seek permanent peace agreements with their neighbors. Hamas, however, has declared its own intention with equal fervor its desire to eradicate Israel.

Flash to Hamas: Israel isn’t going to vacate its land, so it would do everyone in the region well to seek peaceful means to live next door to each other.

This is where I hope the next step will lead the two sides.

Are the Israelis and Hamas finally — finally! – growing tired of war?

I pray that’s the case.

 

International news

Cease-fire? Is peace treaty next?

At the risk of jinxing the whole deal, I feel compelled to say something positive about the open-ended cease-fire that’s been declared in the weeks-long battle between Israel and the Hamas terrorists who run the Gaza Strip.

The cease-fire is in place. Someone got tired of the killing. Maybe both sides grew weary of it.

Whatever the case may be, the end of the shelling, the bombing, the rocket fire, the death and mayhem is a positive sign.

http://news.yahoo.com/israel-destroys-2-gaza-high-rises-escalation-052338846.html

What happens next? As I understand it, the two sides will begin talks. Israel has agreed to allow some imports into Gaza. The Palestinians will be allowed to fish offshore.

Now comes the hard part. Negotiations will start in Egypt in a few weeks that will tackle the tougher issues … such as Israel’s demand that Hamas disarm itself.

I’m not yet holding my breath for that to happen. It’s a start, though.

Hamas started this misery by lobbing rockets into Israel. The Israelis responded the only way they should have done, to defend themselves against the attacks. The resulting bloodshed killed more than 2,000 people, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.

No one should cheer that outcome.

However, now that the shooting has stopped — except for some celebratory gunfire in Gaza — maybe, just maybe, we can start finding a way toward the most elusive goal on the planet: peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

 

Intgernational news

Terrorists release U.S. journalist … to what end?

Peter Theo Curtis is a free man.

Yes, that’s reason to cheer. He’d been held captive by an al-Qaeda-linked terror organization in Syria for two years. Now he’s out, apparently in good health.

His country is happy that he’s free. It’s time to cheer that event.

How, though, does one American family react to this news? I refer to the loved ones of James Foley, another American journalist who was murdered by his captors, also after being held for about two years in Syria.

http://news.msn.com/world/us-says-american-held-in-syria-has-been-freed

My heart breaks for the Foley family. They cannot possibly be greeting this news with unabashed joy. They are still crushed by their loved one’s fate.

The White House reacted with understandable relief at the news. But issued a word of caution: “The president shares in the joy and relief that we all feel now that Theo is out of Syria and safe,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “But we continue to hold in our thoughts and prayers the Americans who remain in captivity in Syria, and we will continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to see that the remaining American hostages are freed.”

The United States and our allies are dealing with unpredictability in the extreme. One terror organization commits a cold-blooded act of murder while another one releases a hostage. How does a government respond to this complicated set of circumstances juxtaposed to each other?

No one should delude themselves into thinking this is an easy puzzle to solve or a problem with a clear solution.

 

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Professor Gingrich lectures on ISIS

Good Saturday morning, students.

Professor Newt Gingrich is going to lecture you on the link attached here about how little President Obama understands about the international terror threat being posed to the United States and, of course, he implies that he — the professor — gets it.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/22/opinion/gingrich-isis-obama/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I don’t deny that the professor is smart. He knows how to win elections, he knows how to rouse them rabbles. He’s just not that good at governing, as his stint as speaker of the House of Reps demonstrated back in the late 1990s.

Here’s in part what he writes about the president’s remarks on the beheading of American journalist James Foley by ISIS terrorists: “I urge you to read President Obama’s full text. It isn’t very long. The most delusional line is his assertion that ‘people like this ultimately fail. They fail because the future is won by those who build and not destroy.’ Of course it is freedom and the rule of law that have been rare throughout history, and tyranny and lawlessness that have been common. ISIS and the ideology it represents won’t just wear themselves out.

“One has to wonder whether the President understands how serious a threat ISIS presents. ISIS is a fact. It is a religiously motivated movement that uses terror as one of its weapons. Beheading people is nothing new in history.”

One has to wonder? No, one need not wonder whether Barack Obama “understands how serious a threat” ISIS is to the rest of the world. He’s living with it. He is hearing constantly from his national security team, his diplomatic team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and from critics such as Professor Gingrich — precisely how dangerous this group of monsters is to the United States.

Gingrich has posed some fascinating notions about ISIS’s reach into mainstream cultures, such as Great Britain. He’s correct to suggest we’d better take this organization seriously.

However, he ought to stop there. Let’s not presume that the president of the United States doesn’t understand these things. The nation has one commander in chief at a time.

At the moment, it is not Professor Newt Gingrich.

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Words of wisdom from the Holy Land

Periodically, I check in with my friends in Israel, who I met in 2009 while traveling through the country on a Rotary International vocational exchange.

I asked two friends, who live in Tel Aviv, about the state of things in his country. I’m concerned for my friends, as the country has been bombarded by rocket fire from Gaza, where the infamous terrorist organization Hamas is calling all the shots.

My friends’ response is as follows:

“We are all safe. Looks like the horrors of the recent operation are behind us now – but every day brings new news.

“Unfortunately the region is changing so fast, where previous enemies collaborate to fight new enemies.

“Take ISIS as an example. “This terror organization is about to change the balance of power in the entire Middle East and I hope they will be defeated soon.

“Israel may find itself cooperating with other Arab countries (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and many others) against a new common enemy.”

It’s not simple over there, folks.

I continue to lay the blame for the violence squarely on Hamas, which today shattered the shaky truce with more rocket fire into Israel from Gaza. The Israelis responded with air strikes, reportedly killing two Palestinians.

My friend, though, has laid out what he thinks is a complicated scenario. Israel is having to make deals with recent enemies to combat a terrorist onslaught. Every one of the nations he mentioned regarding Israel’s cooperating with Arab states at one time or another has gone to war with Israel, only to be defeated on the battlefield.

Jordan and Egypt have forged formal peace treaties with Israel. Saudi Arabia is known to despise the Islamic Republic of Iran and the mullahs who run that country. Will these new friendships hold up under pressure from the terrorists?

I hope so for my friends’ sake, and for the world’s sake as well.

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'Go' on air strikes … but with caution

Count me as one American who supports the air strikes against ISIS terrorists in Iraq.

Also, count me as one who is concerned about the potential for falling down that proverbial slippery slope.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/politics/obama-iraq-turning-point-political/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

President Obama’s decision to strike military targets in northern Iraq is necessary to protect Iraqis and Americans against ISIS, a group known to be far worse than al-Qaeda. The strikes are intended to destroy military installations, munitions and, of course, actual terrorists.

Let’s hope they do their job.

It’s the possible “what’s next” that gives me concern.

The president says Americans aren’t going to re-enter the battlefield against those seeking to destroy the Iraqi government. I’ll take him at his word.

It is absolutely clear that Americans no longer want to fight the Iraq war, which was launched in March 2003 on information regarding weapons of mass destruction that proved to be totally bogus. It lasted nearly a decade, costing billions of dollars and thousands of Americans casualties.

So, it is with some concern about the future that brings this particular statement of support for the attack from the air.

Please, Mr. President, do not resume the fight on the ground.

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Cease-fire holds … now what?

They’ve stopped the shelling in Gaza, for now.

So might there be a more permanent solution on the horizon? No one’s counting on that just yet.

Obama: ‘I have no sympathy for Hamas’

President Obama made it quite clear Wednesday that the United States stands firmly behind Israel’s right to defend itself against the aggression launched by the hated terror group Hamas. He is right, of course.

The United States must stand foursquare with its primary ally in the Middle East and it must be fully aware — always — of Israel’s belief that the countries that surround it are not be trusted completely.

Hamas, let us remember, is nothing more than a terrorist cabal that started this fight with Israel by launching rockets into Israeli neighborhoods. Israel responded with extreme force. Yes, civilians have died and all civilized people mourn the deaths of innocent people.

Who’s responsible for that? Hamas.

Obama also is clear that any permanent peace must rely on Palestinian Authority involvement. The trouble with the PA, though, is that it has aligned itself with Hamas. It has included Hamas in a form of “unity government,” which enrages Israel — and understandably so.

So, the shooting has stopped for the time being.

My hope is that the voices talking to each other can be heard while the explosive noise remains silent.