International Politics of the Middle East

Election officials have said they have contingency plans to deal with "Iran-style" protests similar to those held in Tehran after that country's disputed presidential elections in June

A Western diplomat said a regime thought to be fraudulently elected would struggle to bring security in the face of a worsening Taliban insurgency.

Dr Abdullah said the international community was concerned the drawn-out elections could worsen security, but denied he had come under pressure to make a deal with the government and avoid a lengthy battle.He said: "They cannot pressure me to be part of a mafia system, a 'narcostate' as they themselves defined it.He added: "The international community must be aware of the conduct of this regime and I don't think they would like me to be part of this."

A Pakistani judge ruled on Friday that nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan should be allowed freedom of movement more than five years after being put under house arrest for his role in a nuclear proliferation scandal.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.

most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

“That’s the essence of good communication: having the right intent up front and letting our actions speak for themselves,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “We shouldn’t care if people don’t like us. That isn’t the goal. The goal is credibility. And we earn that over time.”

Khamenei expressed doubt over claims by conservative hardliners that opposition leaders were backed by the west, in direct contradiction to charges set out during recent mass trials.The comments yesterday came as a surprising contrast to the assertions from other Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that the US, Britain and others played a direct role in fomenting unrest and violence during the disputed presidential election in June.

added that the unrest was calculated by Iran's enemies "whether or not its leaders know"

The issues are complex. Advocates and opponents cast the debate as preservation of the past challenging progress for the future, conservation versus energy, national interests versus minority Kurdish interests, nationalism versus the interests of neighboring countries. The government argues that the dam will bring irrigation and power to the region. Opponents maintain that much of the electricity generated will go to other parts of the country. Iraq has protested vehemently against Turkey damming the Tigris River just upstream and further restricting the water flow across the border. There is also the geopolitical drama of the European partnerships withdrawing and Turkey potentially pursuing other partners such as China and Russia.

The Arabs are more difficult to pin down.

Israel, in return for a deal on settlements, is seeking not only a tougher line over Iran but normalisation of relations with Arab states, such as overflight rights for its airline El Al, establishment of trade offices and embassies, and an end to the ban on travellers with Israeli stamps in their passports.

Iraq and Syria have both recalled their ambassadors in a deepening rift over claims Damascus was harbouring militants who bombed Baghdad.

The two Arab neighbours only revived diplomatic links in 2006, after more than 20 years of mutual hostility.

In a separate development that appeared to run counter to the confession, a statement from an extremist Islamist militant group, that is violently opposed to the secular Baathists, has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Islamic State of Iraq, known to be an al-Qaeda umbrella group, said it had carried out the bombings to "wreck the bastions of infidelity" in Baghdad. The statement was posted on Tuesday morning on a website commonly used by extremist militant groups.

"Iraq will be a colony of Iran."

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This 67-page report documents a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the "third sex" and the "feminization" of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing.

theAmerican MidEast Leadership Network’s Virtual Scrapbook, a daily events blog and online collection of photographs and audio-visual clips gathered by participants of AMLN’s United States-Syria Grassroots Diplomacy Program. Now in its third year, the three-week cultural exchange run by the New York- based nonprofit organization affords American students and young professionals the opportunity to meet face-to-face with their Syrian counterparts to address misconceptions between them and to form a bridge of understanding at the citizen level.

"These declarations [of an Islamic emirate] are aimed towards incitement against the Gaza Strip and an attempt at recruiting an international alliance against the Gaza Strip. "And we warn those who are behind these Israeli Zionist declarations: the Gaza Strip only contains its people." Jund Ansar Allah (Army of the Helpers of God) gained some prominence two months ago when it staged a failed attack on a border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The group is very critical of Hamas, which governs Gaza, accusing the Islamist group of not being Islamist enough.

Borzou Daragahi, writing in the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Iran's president has conducted a purge of the nation's intelligence ministry," but he makes a very weak case for Ahmadinejad actually being in charge. Daragahi also wrote that "officials in the Revolutionary Guard" have replaced the intelligence officials who were suspected of disloyalty. The moves could just as easily support the argument that the military has actually taken power.

the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq

intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies.

Syria’s opposition movement is in shambles. Obama’s victory changed the calculations of the opposition in exile. US government supplied MEPI money, which sustained some, has dried up. But mostly, Syrians, who had hoped that President Bush would “reform the greater Middle East” as promised, understood it was not to be. President Assad is firmly in control at home; the Iraq fiasco has re-legitimized authoritarianism in the Middle East, at least tmeporarily; and Obama has little choice but to engage with America’s erstwhile enemies in the region, as he is now doing.