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In the past few weeks, however, things have suddenly accelerated as the king has moved to show the ultraconservative Saudi religious establishment quite literally who's boss. He sacked the head of the feared religious police and the minister of justice, appointed Nora al-Fayez as deputy education minister, making her the highest-ranking female official in the country's history, and moved to equalize the education of women and men under the direction of a favored son-in-law who has been preparing for years to modernize the nation's school system

Born into the crumbling palaces of desert tribes in 1923 (the precise date was not recorded), he now rules one of the richest countries on earth. When Abdullah was a child, his father had not yet finished his conquests on the Arabian Peninsula or founded the nation-state that bears the family name.The boy was 6 when his mother died, and as her only son he felt he had to take care of his younger sisters even then. "He had a tough childhood," says Abdullah's daughter Princess Adelah. "He took on a lot of responsibility from the time he was very young." The children grew up amid rebellion and insurrection, with their father's rule threatened by the intolerant Wahhabi Brotherhood that had helped bring him to power.As a grown man, Abdullah witnessed the oil boom and the corrosive effects of spectacular greed—and more fanaticism, more insurrection, including the bloody siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in 1979. There were dangerous intrigues within the family, too. When Abdel Aziz died in 1953, the succession passed to his son Saud, who was deposed in 1964 by his half-brother Faisal, who was murdered years later by a nephew. When Fahd took the crown in 1982, Abdullah became crown prince, and after Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, he became acting king.

He brought a powerful sense of desert tradition to the job. His mother was from the powerful Shammar tribe that extends from Saudi territory deep into Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and before being named crown prince he had been head of the Saudi National Guard, a force made up of tribal levies from all over the country. He was immersed in Bedouin culture—the same traditional Saudi values that frame the world as Abdullah sees it. "You do not see him being more lenient with his family than with the National Guard," Princess Adelah told NEWSWEEK. "He is very straightforward, very honest, and hates injustice." Ambassador Fraker sees him as "someone who in many ways is a throwback to that desert-warrior ethos where men stand by their word, they look each other straight in the eye and they apply a code of honor."

US forces shot down an Iranian drone 60 miles (100km) north-east of Baghdad last month, the US military says.

The US accused Iran of deliberately sending the spy drone into Iraqi airspace, but a top Iraqi official suggested it had been a mistake.

"This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians," said US military spokesman Lt Col Mark Ballesteros, who identified the drone as an Iranian-made Ababil 3.

The United States has stepped closer to a total ban on the use and export of cluster bombs with the signing by Barack Obama of a new permanent law that would make it almost impossible for the US to sell the controversial weapons. The decision was hailed by opponents of the weapons as a "major turnaround in US policy" that overrode Pentagon calls to permit their continued export.

Under the new rules, the air and artillery-deployed weapons, which scatter hundreds of bomblets, are required to have a self-destruct failure rate of less than 1%, which few of the US cluster bombs meet, before being cleared for sale. Despite a temporary ban having been in place, the Pentagon made it clear last year that it was keen to see the export of the weapons again.

The new law comes into force amid growing pressure from Congress for a complete ban on their use, even by the US military. International opposition to cluster bombs, which maim and kill civilians long after they have been fired during conflicts, has been hardening rapidly since the Israeli Defence Forces fired more than 1m into southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Hezbollah. Last year, a treaty limiting their use was signed by 95 countries, including most of America's Nato allies - but not the US.

First, for all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful "Israel lobby," or who admitted that it existed but didn't think it had much influence, or who thought that the real problem was some supposedly all-powerful "Saudi lobby," think again.  

Second, this incident does not speak well for Barack Obama's principles, or even his political instincts. It is one thing to pander to various special interest groups while you're running for office -- everyone expects that sort of thing -- but it's another thing to let a group of bullies push you around in the first fifty days of your administration.

The decision to toss Freeman over the side tells the lobby (and others) that it doesn't have to worry about Barack getting tough with Netanyahu, or even that he’s willing to fight hard for his own people. Although AIPAC has issued a pro forma denial that it had anything to do with it, well-placed friends in Washington have told me that it leaned hard on some key senators behind-the-scenes and is now bragging that Obama is a "pushover." Bottom line: Caving on Freeman was a blunder that could come back to haunt any subsequent effort to address the deteriorating situation in the region.

The Obama administration and its European allies are setting a target of early October to determine whether engagement with Iran is making progress or should lead to sanctions, said senior officials briefed on the policy.

They also are developing specific benchmarks to gauge Iranian behavior. Those include whether Tehran is willing to let United Nations monitors make snap inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities that are now off-limits, and whether it will agree to a "freeze for freeze" -- halting uranium enrichment in return for holding off on new economic sanctions -- as a precursor to formal negotiations.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have stressed that U.S. overtures toward Tehran won't be open-ended. The administration is committed to testing Tehran's willingness to cooperate on the nuclear issue and on related efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq. Should diplomacy fail, the Obama administration has pledged to increase economic pressure. Mrs. Clinton recently testified that the U.S. will impose "crippling sanctions" on Iran if it doesn't negotiate.

The new government of Israel is seeking to reorient the country’s foreign policy, arguing that to rely purely on the formulas of trading land for peace and promising a Palestinian state fails to grasp what it views as the deeper issues: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state and the rising hegemonic appetite of Iran.

Israel’s effort to switch the discussion to Iran is likely to be met in Washington and in European capitals with the assertion that it is precisely because of the need to build an alliance to confront Iran that Israel must move ahead vigorously with the Palestinians as well as with the Syrians.

It seems likely that the plan that Mr. Netanyahu will present to Mr. Obama will have a strong regional component in an attempt to fend off pressure on Israel to accept the Arab League peace plan, which calls on Israel to return to the 1967 borders as well as to accept a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel. The new Israeli government completely rejects both.

Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says.

Iran remains the "most active state sponsor of terrorism" in the world, a report by the US state department says. It says Iran's role in the planning and financing of terror-related activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan threatens efforts to promote peace.

Al-Qaeda remains the biggest danger to the US and the West, the annual report states, noting that terror attacks are rising in Pakistan.

A majority of Lebanon's parliament will nominate U.S.-backed Saad al-Hariri for the post of prime minister, paving the way for his appointment later this week, political sources said on Friday.

On the other side of the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates authorities moved quickly to shut down a newspaper which ran a critical article about the repression. In Dubai, home to a huge Iranian expatriate community, protests were banned.

But in Bahrain, with a Sunni royal family, a restive Shia majority and fears of Iranian subversion, there was warm praise for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "If he was a candidate in any Arab country against a current president," wrote Qassim Hussain in al-Wasat, "the public would vote for him."

In regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, leader of the conservative Arab camp, there has been resounding public silence but private criticism – hardly surprising for an autocratic country with no political parties and where even local elections have been put on hold. Beneath the surface lies Saudi concern about possible unrest in the oil-producing Eastern province, where there is a Shia majority and a history of Iranian influence.

As minister of the Revolutionary Guards in the 1980s, Rafiqdoost played a key role in sponsoring Hezbollah in Lebanon--which kidnapped foreigners, hijacked airplanes, set off car bombs, trafficked in heroin and pioneered the use of suicide bombers. According to Gregory Sullivan, spokesman for the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau at the U.S. State Department, the foundations are the perfect vehicles to carry out Iran's shadow foreign policy. (One of them offered the $2.8 million bounty to anyone who carried out Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa to kill British author Salman Rushdie.)

The largest "charity" (at least in terms of real estate holdings) is the centuries-old Razavi Foundation, charged with caring for Iran's most revered shrine--the tomb of Reza, the Eighth Shiite Imam, in the northern city of Mashhad. It is run by one of Iran's leading hard-line mullahs, Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi, who prefers to stay out of the public eye but emerges occasionally to urge death to apostates and other opponents of the clerical regime.

The Razavi Foundation owns vast tracts of urban real estate all across Iran, as well as hotels, factories, farms and quarries. Its assets are impossible to value with any precision, since the foundation has never released an inventory of its holdings, but Iranian economists speak of a net asset value of $15 billion or more. The foundation also receives generous contributions from the millions of pilgrims who visit the Mashhad shrine each year.

Mousavi, 67, who was Iran's prime minister during the 1980s, has a reputation for being incorrupt. He has surprised analysts by emerging as a serious challenger to Ahmadinejad and is thought likely to coast to victory in Tehran, while the incumbent is strong in the countryside and small towns.

The contrast between the camps could not have been starker. Mousavi supporters are predominantly young and urbane. Many of the young women in the chain would be accused by conservatives of wearing "bad hijab" – meaning their compulsory head covering is only loosely attached.

"Ahmadinejad has done nothing good for our country," said Neda Ahmadi, 24, wearing blue eye make-up and a tight-fitting jacket and jeans beneath her hijab. "Musawi can improve Iran's relations with other countries and focus on our own people's needs."But Lida, another 24-year-old woman, who was at the president's rally, called him "a truthful man who leads a simple life". Iran she said, "has not been isolated but is showing itself as it wants other countries to see it".

Ghamlush's recklessness led investigators to the man they now suspect was the mastermind of the terrorist attack: Hajj Salim, 45. A southern Lebanese from Nabatiyah, Salim is considered to be the commander of the "military" wing of Hezbollah and lives in South Beirut, a Shiite stronghold. Salim's secret "Special Operational Unit" reports directly to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, 48.

Imad Mughniyah, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, ran the unit until Feb. 12, 2008, when he was killed in an attack in Damascus, presumably by Israeli intelligence. Since then, Salim has largely assumed the duties of his notorious predecessor, with Mughniyah's brother-in-law, Mustafa Badr al-Din, serving as his deputy. The two men report only to their superior, and to General Kassim Sulaimani, their contact in Tehran. The Iranians, the principal financiers of the military Lebanese "Party of God," have repressed the Syrians' influence.

The deeper the investigators in Beirut penetrated into the case, the clearer the picture became, according to the SPIEGEL source. They have apparently discovered which Hezbollah member obtained the small Mitsubishi truck used in the attack. They have also been able to trace the origins of the explosives, more than 1,000 kilograms of TNT, C4 and hexogen.

Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri said on Wednesday Hezbollah will be part of the next cabinet "whether Israel likes it or not," as his bid to form a government entered its eight week."The national unity government will include the (ruling) March 14 alliance, and I also want to assure the Israeli enemy that Hezbollah will be in this government whether it likes it or not because Lebanon's interests require all parties be involved in this cabinet," Hariri said at an Iftar feast to break the Ramadan fast on Tuesday night.

Earlier this month, Israel warned that the Lebanese government as a whole would be blamed for any attack from its territory if the Shiite militant group were part of the new government."If Hezbollah joins the government it will be clear that the Lebanese government will be held responsible for any attack coming from its territory against Israel," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Iran has offered to arm the Lebanese Military, Beirut's al-Akhbar newspaper reported Wednesday.  In a brief report, the paper said that the Iranian Embassy in Beirut inquired after the Lebanese army's armament requirements. The latter replied in detail, focusing mainly on air force needs.

JPost.com » Israel » Article Apr 24, 2009 0:14&nbsp;|&nbsp;Updated Apr 24, 2009 13:54 'World leaders must drop their slogans' By DAVID HOROVITZ AND AMIR MIZROCH PrintSubscribe articleTitle = ' \'World leaders must drop their slogans\' '; showOdiogoReadNowButton ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566',articleTitle,'0', 290, 55); E-mailToolbar + Recommend: What's this? showInitialOdiogoReadNowFrame ('1002,1003,1005,1004,1006,1484,1560,1561,1562,1563,1564,1565,1566', '0', 290, 0); Talkbacks for this article: 117 &nbsp; | &nbsp;Avg. rating 4.61 out of 5</s

The international community has to "stop speaking in slogans" if it really wants to help the new Israeli government work toward a solution to the Palestinian conflict and help bring stability to the Middle East, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper since taking the job.

"Over the last two weeks I've had many conversations with my colleagues around the world," he said. "Just today, I saw the political adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Chinese foreign minister and the Czech prime minister. And everybody, you know, speaks with you like you're in a campaign: Occupation, settlements, settlers..." Slogans like these, and others Lieberman cited, such as "land for peace" and "two-state solution," were both overly simplistic and ignored the root causes of the ongoing conflict, he said.

the United States supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. The new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this goal, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already said that he does not think Israel is bound by its recent commitments on this issue. &nbsp;

To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs).&nbsp; While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two-state solution a reality.

This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, "will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure..."

Stavridis, an officer/scholar/diplomat with a Ph.D. in security issues, last month warned about the intensified activity of Hezbollah and other fanatic Islamic organizations in South and Central America.

The possibility of an Israeli attack against a nuclear Iran, which will result in Iran and Hezbollah making good on their threats to attack American assets in response, will be a test of the willingness of NATO's member states to implement Article 5 of the treaty's convention and assist in the American defense (in other words, the counterattack).

The U.S. army learns from IDF experiences and considers the latter's operations an important laboratory, even though not all such tests are blessed with complete and immediate success. For example, the Americans admire the Israel Air Force's proven ability to operate aircraft in difficult weather. Very few armies in the world are closer in spirit to the U.S. Army than the IDF.