Lebanon's pro-western coalition has been pronounced the winner of Sunday's parliamentary election, following a tough race against the pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies. Lebanon's Interior Minister Ziad Baroud announced the results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, district by district, proclaiming the pro-Western March 14 coalition the winner with 71 seats in the 128-member parliament. The pro-Syrian Hezbollah, which many analysts predicted would secure a majority in the parliament, came away with 57 seats.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Taliban Suspected in Attack on Pakistan Hotel - Zahid Hussain, Wall Street Journal. At least 11 people were killed and about 50 wounded in the city of Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, when a bomb-laden vehicle exploded at a hotel popular with foreign dignitaries and international relief workers. Witnesses and employees of the Pearl Continental Hotel said several gunmen shot their way past guards at the hotel's main gate Tuesday night before the vehicle broke into the hotel compound and exploded. Some gunmen also entered the premises from the back wall. The hotel was severely damaged by the blast. Officials said it was likely some guests remained trapped in the rubble, suggesting the death toll could rise. "Some bodies may still be buried under the debris," said Shaqat Ullah, a senior police officer in Peshawar.
Attacked, Pakistani Villagers Take On Taliban - Sabrina Tavernese and Irfan Ashraf, New York Times. Villagers are rising up against the Taliban in a remote corner of northern Pakistan, a grass-roots rebellion that underscores the shift in the public mood against the militants and a growing confidence to confront them. More than a thousand villagers from the district of Dir have been fighting Taliban militants since Friday, when a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his payload during prayer time at a mosque, killing at least 30 villagers. Enraged by the bombing, men from surrounding villages began looking for Taliban militants and their supporters, burning houses and killing at least 11 men they identified as Taliban fighters, according to accounts from seven local residents, including one who took part in the fighting.
Truck Bomb Kills 11, Injures Dozens At Pakistani Hotel - Griff Witte, Washington Post. A massive truck bomb exploded outside a luxury hotel in northwestern Pakistan's provincial capital Tuesday night, killing 11 people and injuring at least 50, officials said. The attack marked the latest salvo by insurgents who have vowed to avenge an army offensive in the nearby Swat Valley, and it underscored their ability to strike at some of the country's most heavily fortified targets. Peshawar's Pearl Continental Hotel had been considered an oasis of relative security in a city that has become a front line in the battle between the Pakistani government and radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The hotel, a local landmark, had been popular among foreigners, including aid workers who have been using it in recent weeks as a base for their efforts to assist the more than 2 million Pakistanis displaced from their homes by the fighting in Swat.
Militants Strike Hotel in Pakistan, Killing 11 - Ismail Khan and Salman Masood, New York Times. Militants opened fire on security guards and rushed a small truck packed with explosives through the gates of a five-star hotel in this northwestern city on Tuesday, detonating the payload in the parking lot and killing at least 11 people and wounding 55, Pakistani officials said. The blast, powerful enough to leave a crater 6 feet deep and 15 feet wide, collapsed the western wing of the hotel, the Pearl Continental, one of the few in the city that cater to Western visitors. Pakistani television broadcast images of wounded people, panicked and dazed with blood-soaked clothes, being helped out of the smoke-filled lobby. The hotel’s registry was swollen at the time of the attack, which occurred about 10 p.m. local time, with officials working for United Nations agencies and other aid groups tending to the large refugee population that has been displaced by the recent fighting in Pakistan between the Pakistani Army and Taliban insurgents.
Pakistan Bombing Kills 11 at Peshawar Hotel - Alex Rodriguez and Zulfiqar Ali, Los Angeles Times. A suicide truck bombing at an upscale Peshawar hotel late Tuesday killed at least 11 people and injured 50, the latest in a series of bloody attacks across this war-torn country as government troops seek to drive Taliban militants out of the northwest region. The blast occurred at the Pearl Continental, a heavily fortified and secured hotel commonly used by foreigners and dignitaries. At least two of the dead were United Nations employees. One was Perseveranda So, UNICEF's chief of education in Pakistan. She had worked for the agency since 1994. Earlier in the day, she toured displacement camps in Mardan. Also killed was a Serbian man who worked as an information technology officer for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.
IRAQ
Iraq Moves Ahead With Vote on US Security Pact - Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times. The Iraqi government is pressing ahead with plans to hold a national referendum on the Iraqi-American security agreement - a measure likely to lose if put to a popular vote with the outcome that American troops could be forced to leave as early as next summer, nearly a year and half ahead of schedule. Under the security plan agreed to by the two governments last year, American combat troops must withdraw from the cities by the end of this month and all American troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. Passage of the agreement was contingent on the approval of several other measures, including legislation requiring a referendum on the agreement. If the Iraqi people vote down the security pact, the American military would have to withdraw all troops within a year from the date of the vote, which could be held as soon as this summer.
Iraq's Sectarian Rhetoric Fuels Election Concerns - Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal. US Ambassador Christopher Hill said Tuesday that recent signs of political rapprochement among Iraqi leaders are encouraging, but the latest heated rhetoric is a reminder of the nation's fragile situation. Although the US military drawdown will reduce its footprint in Iraq, America still plays a critical role as a mediator to solve problems among Iraqis. That need shows how far the war-torn country has to go in moving away from sectarian and ethnic agendas and achieving political stability. Mr. Hill, who arrived in Iraq in April, said his experience as lead negotiator for the US in talks with North Korea and helping broker peace talks in Bosnia and Kosovo gives him some understanding of Iraq's factionalism. "Often in transitional political circumstances, there's a tremendous premium on people's personalities," he said.
Car Bomb Kills Dozens in Southern Iraq - Associated Press. A car bomb ripped through a market district Wednesday in a mainly Shiite area in southern Iraq, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, officials said. The blast is the latest in a series of high-profile explosions that have raised concerns about a resurgence of violence as the US military faces a June 30 deadline to withdraw from urban areas in Iraq. An explosives-laden car was parked in the center of the commercial area in Bathaa when it blew up about 9 a.m., according to officials. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information to media, said at least 15 people were killed and at least 30 were wounded.
IRAN
Man Behind Iran Policy Faces Big Task - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. Diplomatic troubleshooter Dennis Ross is a legendary talker, a specialist in developing peace processes - long ones. For 12 years, in the first Bush presidency and both terms of the Clinton presidency, he was at the center of the seemingly endless effort to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As one of the main architects of the Obama administration's Iran policy, Ross is crafting a way to reach out to Iran to persuade its leaders to abandon any plan to develop nuclear weapons. President Obama says this effort will have to show results by the end of the year. If engagement fails, Ross probably will have to shift course and help devise a blunt-force strategy to accomplish the same goal. That process will also have a deadline: Israel has hinted for years that it would attack Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
As Iran Gets Ready to Vote, the Economy Dominates - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. In the West, Iran’s coming presidential election is viewed largely through the lens of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s crackdown on social freedoms and his combative approach to Israel, the United States, and Iran’s nuclear program. But here, as in so many other elections, another issue is seen as more important: the economy. Iran’s crippling inflation rate, unemployment, and the question of how its oil revenue is being spent are at the top of the agenda for most voters, analysts say. The two main camps here see the issue in starkly opposed terms, with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters saying his policies have improved things for average people, while all three of his challengers in the election on Friday insist that the economy is in serious trouble. Even when it comes to basic economic indicators, the two sides often present starkly opposed statistics and projections, leaving many voters confused about what to believe.
Ex-Iranian President Criticizes Ayatollah - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Three days before Iranians go to the polls to elect a president, one of the country's most powerful clerics, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued an open letter on Tuesday complaining that the country's supreme leader has remained silent in the face of "insults, lies and false allegations" by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The unusual letter reflects the intensity of the Iranian election campaign, laying bare the deep political rifts and sore feelings within the country's leadership. It is rare for senior Iranian clerics to publicly criticize the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani's letter came a week after a bare-knuckled, televised debate between Ahmadinejad and his main challenger, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi. During the debate, Ahmadinejad charged that Mousavi's campaign was backed by "corrupt" politicians such as Rafsanjani, whom he called "the main puppet master." Ahmadinejad also accused Rafsanjani, who served as Iran's president from 1989 to 1997, of turning himself and his family members into "billionaires" since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iranian Presidential Candidate's Wife Takes the Spotlight - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Hundreds of young women in head scarves scream, stomp their feet and wave green flags and banners inside the Bahman Cultural Center, often a venue for pop bands performing in Tehran. But it's not a rock star they await - it's an aging politician and his wife, who has electrified female voters with her impressive resume and seemingly modern relationship with her husband. As diminutive former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, walk into the stadium from a side entrance, the crowd's roar peaks. She almost leads her frail husband, who appears slightly taken aback by the fervor he has unleashed as the reformist front-runner in the battle to unseat incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's presidential election.
Iran's Potemkin Election - Con Coughlin, Wall Street Journal opinion. After suffering three decades of international isolation and unremitting Islamic revolution, millions of pro-democracy voters in Iran were supposed to have the opportunity in this Friday's presidential election to express their disenchantment with religious dictatorship. It is not to be. The guardians of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution will remain deeply entrenched. The leading candidate is the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was a founding member of the Revolutionary Guards and got to know Khomeini during the American embassy siege (he was not directly involved in the hostage-taking itself). Meanwhile, the country's all-powerful supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was installed directly at the behest of Khomeini to be his successor shortly before the latter's death in June 1989. Khomeini's heirs have maintained their iron grip of power, which has enabled them to uphold his guiding principles as well as export the Iranian revolution to places such as Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq. They are also pressing ahead with the development of a controversial nuclear program.
NORTH KOREA
Seoul Imposes Sanctions on N. Korea - Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times. South Korea imposed its first financial sanctions on North Korean companies, officials said Tuesday, taking a symbolic action that could anger the Communist regime while bolstering a joint front with the United States as the allies seek to punish the North for its recent nuclear test. North Korea continued its harsh rhetoric on Tuesday when the government-run newspaper, Minju Joson, warned that the regime can use its nuclear program not only for defense but also as “a merciless offensive means.” The escalating tensions began hurting investor sentiments. On Tuesday, a South Korean fur-coat maker became the first company to announce it was withdrawing from the Kaesong joint industrial complex in North Korea, a sign that deteriorating inter-Korean relations and tensions over the North’s recent nuclear test were jeopardizing the complex, once hailed as a model of future economic cooperation between the two Koreas.
N. Korean Women Who Flee to China Suffer in Stateless Limbo - Blaine Harden, Washington Post. For North Korean women who run off to China, rules are rigged on both sides of the border. North Korea regards them as criminals for leaving. China refuses to recognize them as refugees, sending many back to face interrogation, hard labor and sometimes torture. Others stay on in stateless limbo, sold by brokers to Chinese men in need of fertile women and live-in labor. Bang Mi Sun, a former actress in North Korea, lived the worst of both worlds. After crossing into China in 2002, she was separated from her two children and sold into marriage to three men. She managed to get away from all three. When she ran for the third time, Chinese police arrested her and sent her back to North Korea, where a police beating mangled her left leg. Permanently maimed, she was sent to a labor camp for reeducation.
Two Paths, Same Fate for Reporters Facing Prison - Jesse McKinley, New York Times. The roads that led two Current TV employees, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, to be sentenced this week to a North Korean labor camp were in some regards as different as their lives here in California. Ms. Ling, who grew up in a Sacramento suburb and has a well-known journalist sister, was earning a reputation at the San Francisco-based news channel as a fearless globe-trotting journalist. She reported stories in hotspots like Sri Lanka and Myanmar and witnessed the type of bloodshed such gritty work often entails. Ms. Lee, on the other hand, moved as an adult to the United States from South Korea and usually worked in Los Angeles behind the scenes as an editor. She was taking her first trip on an overseas assignment for the company when she was arrested, according to a Current TV employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the company’s policy of not commenting on the situation.
Obama Discovers North Korea - Wall Street Journal editorial. We pity the historian generations hence who attempts to look back and make sense of the civilized world's feckless efforts to deal with North Korea. Pyongyang's latest provocation in its nuclear "diplomacy" is the arrest and now conviction of two American journalists. Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been sentenced by North Korea's highest court to "12 years of reform through labor." The North Korean "court" saw no reason to share with the world the exact nature of the women's offense. If there is a silver lining in this incident it is the apparent toughening of the Obama Administration's view of its North Korean negotiating partner. The journalists, who work for the San Francisco-based Current TV, were picked up in March by guards on the North's northwest border with China while reporting on refugees fleeing the world's most repressive regime. It is unclear whether they were grabbed in Chinese or North Korean territory. A cameraman working with them got away, presumably because he ran faster than the women. The Kim Jong Il regime has tried a series of moves to get the world's attention - and especially that of the new Obama Administration.
Pawns of Pyongyang - Los Angeles Times editorial. The case of two American journalists convicted of illegally entering North Korea and of an additional unspecified "grave crime" shines a light on so many human rights abuses by the Pyongyang government that we hardly know where to begin. First, there's the lack of due process afforded Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, who were reporting on human trafficking for San Francisco-based Current TV when they were arrested March 17 along North Korea's border with China. After three months of detention, they received a closed-door trial with a state-appointed lawyer in the country's highest court, leaving them no court of appeal. They were then given a draconian sentence of 12 years' hard labor for a crime that still has no name or public proof. Surely it was not the regime's goal to draw international attention to its brutal labor and political "reeducation" camps. But that would be the case if the sentence is carried out. Lee and Ling would enter an inhumane prison system that, according to human rights activists, houses tens of thousands of convicts, many of them political prisoners considered hostile to leader Kim Jong Il's communist regime. Prisoners typically are put to work in mines or factories for 10 hours a day, seven days a week, with minimal food and sleep, poor hygiene and insufficient medical care. Beatings are commonplace, and many prisoners do not survive.
North Korea Deserves the Diplomacy of Silence - Edward N. Luttwak, Wall Street Journal opinion. In recent weeks, North Korea has detonated a nuclear bomb and violated UN Security Council prohibitions by launching ballistic missiles. It has threatened war against South Korea, repudiating the July 1953 armistice agreement and thus ostensibly reverting to a state of war with the United States. It has also sentenced two American journalists - Euna Lee and Laura Ling - to 12 years in a labor camp. These are extreme provocations. Only a military attack could exceed them. Our response, of course, must be diplomatic. But only a very special kind of diplomacy can yield positive results: a diplomacy of silence. Under it, no communications whatever would be sent to the North Korean regime, there would be no informal dialogues with any North Korean diplomats anywhere, and, above all, no attempt would be made to renew negotiations in any format.
THE LONG WAR
Guantanamo Bay Detainee Brought to US for Trial - Peter Finn, Washington Post. The Obama administration pressed ahead yesterday with its plans to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, flying a detainee to New York to face federal trial despite bipartisan opposition in Congress to bringing such prisoners to the United States for trial, resettlement or continued detention. The transfer of Ahmed Ghailani to face capital charges in the 1998 East Africa bombings marked the first time a detainee who is not an American citizen has been brought from the prison in Cuba to the United States. Ghailani, appearing briefly in US District Court in Manhattan yesterday, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in connection with the blasts at the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Those attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Human rights groups, which earlier expressed dismay about President Obama's announcement that some suspects would be tried in reformed military commissions, welcomed Ghailani's transfer. But Republicans and some military groups, who were cheered by the prospect of renewed military tribunals, sharply attacked the decision to hold any trials in the United States.
Gitmo Detainee Arrives in US - Evan Perez and Chad Bray, Wall Street Journal. Federal authorities for the first time transferred a prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in the US, in line with the Obama administration's goal of closing the prison at the American military base there. Ahmed Ghailani appeared Tuesday in federal court in New York and pleaded not guilty to 286 counts related to the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and other terrorist activities allegedly carried out by al Qaeda. The Tanzanian native, wearing blue prison garb, answered in English that he understood when told by the judge that a lawyer would be appointed to represent him. The defendant's arrival stirred criticism from opponents of President Barack Obama's plans to shut the Guantanamo facility by January.
NY Prosecution of Terrorism Suspect Divisive - Ben Conery, Washington Times. As the Obama administration began its test case of prosecuting a Guantanamo detainee in federal court, advocates and lawmakers remained sharply divided about whether the move helps or jeopardizes national security. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani pleaded not guilty Tuesday at a federal courthouse in New York on charges that he participated in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Mr. Ghailani has been under indictment since 2001. He was captured in 2004 and has been at the detention center at US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Mr. Ghailani is the first Guantanamo detainee to have his case transferred to a civilian court, part of the Obama administration's pledge to close the facility by next year.
Palau Agrees to Take Some Guantanamo Detainees - Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times. US officials have persuaded the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau to accept some of the Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, representing a major step in the Obama administration's plan to close the prison. In a statement released to the Associated Press today, Palau President Johnson Toribiong said his government had "agreed to accommodate the United States of America's request to temporarily resettle in Palau up to 17 ethnic Uighur detainees . . . subject to periodic review." It was unclear what he meant by "temporarily." The difficulty in finding a home for the detainees, members of China's Uighur minority, underscores the obstacles the White House faces in meeting its January deadline for closing Guantanamo.
Palau to Take Chinese Guantánamo Detainees - Mark Landler, New York Times. The United States has won an agreement to transfer up to 17 Chinese Muslims from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Palau, a sparsely populated archipelago in the North Pacific, according to a statement released by Palau to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The president of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, said his government had “agreed to accommodate the United States of America’s request” to “temporarily resettle” the detainees, members of the Uighur ethnic group, “subject to periodic review.” Palau, the president said, would be “honored and proud” to take them in a “humanitarian gesture.” The agreement opens the door to the largest single transfer of Guantánamo prisoners and is the first major deal on detainees since President Obama pledged soon after taking office in January to close the prison within a year.
Lawsuits Force Disclosures by CIA - Scott Shane, New York Times. So far, President Obama has managed to curb Congressional calls for a national commission to investigate Bush administration detention policies. But Mr. Obama cannot control the courts, and lawsuits are turning out to be the force driving disclosures about brutal interrogations. Mr. Obama’s decision in April to release legal opinions from the Bush administration on interrogation, which were sought in a lawsuit, has opened the door to the disclosure of other documents. That poses a problem for the Central Intelligence Agency as it tries to comply with Mr. Obama’s proclaimed policy of openness while preserving the secrecy that agency officials view as the foundation of intelligence collection.
US NATIONAL SECURITY
Obama's Defense Budget Gap - Michael O'Hanlon, Washington Post opinion. After three months of very impressive decisions regarding national security, President Obama made perhaps his first significant mistake. It concerns the defense budget, where his plans are insufficient to support the national security establishment over the next five years. Thankfully, this mistake can be fixed before it causes big harm - either by Congress this year or the administration itself next year. The administration is hardly slashing funds for defense; it is simply adopting a policy of zero real growth in the "base budget" (the part that does not include war costs, which are too unpredictable to include in this analysis). Specifically, the base budget is to grow 2 percent a year over the next five years. But with the inflation rate expected to average over 1.5 percent, the net effect is essentially no real growth. Cumulatively, that would leave us about $150 billion short of actual funding requirements through 2014. The administration is right to propose increasing resources for the State Department and aid programs. But it is unwise politics and unwise strategy to put these key elements of foreign policy in direct competition with each other, as appears to be the case in the new budget.
AFRICA
Battle to Halt Graft Scourge in Africa Ebbs - Celia W. Dugger, New York Times. The fight against corruption in Africa’s most pivotal nations is faltering as public agencies investigating wrongdoing by powerful politicians have been undermined or disbanded and officials leading the charge have been dismissed, subjected to death threats and driven into exile. “We are witnessing an era of major backtracking on the anticorruption drive,” said Daniel Kaufmann, an authority on corruption who works at the Brookings Institution. “And one of the most poignant illustrations is the fate of the few anticorruption commissions that have had courageous leadership. They’re either embattled or dead.” Experts, prosecutors and watchdog groups say they fear that major setbacks to anticorruption efforts in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are weakening the resolve to root out graft, a stubborn scourge that saps money needed to combat poverty and disease in the world’s poorest region.
AMERICAS
Mexico Cracks Down on Local Police Corruption - David Luhnow, Wall Street Journal. Federal police raided several local police stations in northern Nuevo León state Tuesday, as part of a sweep to try to clean up local forces allegedly corrupted by drug-trafficking gangs, state officials said. The raids came a day after heavily armed federal police engaged in a tense standoff with local officers in Monterrey, Mexico's third-biggest city. Several dozen federal police and scores of local police squared off for several hours Monday afternoon at a busy intersection in Monterrey, aiming at each other with semiautomatic assault weapons and threatening to kill one another. In the end, no one was hurt, but images of the two forces aiming guns at each other stunned Mexicans.
An Independence Claim in Nicaragua - Blake Schmidt and Marc Lacey, New York Times. After declaring independence from the rest of Nicaragua in April, a group of indigenous activists from the Mosquito Coast readied a grand celebration to commemorate the occasion. Their feast would be ruined, however, when the regional government sent in the police to seize the main course. Commercial sales of turtle meat, which has long been a delicacy here, is restricted in Nicaragua because of declining populations of endangered green sea turtles - one of many cultural clashes that the people in this remote corner of Nicaragua, who have eaten turtle for generations, say have propelled them to create their own country, which they have dubbed the Communitarian Nation of Mosquitia.
ASIA PACIFIC
Burma Court Allows Witness Testimony on Suu Kyi's Behalf - Tim Johnston, Washington Post. A court in Burma has partially granted an appeal by lawyers for Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, allowing testimony at her trial by one of several defense witnesses who previously had been barred from the proceedings. Diplomats called the decision a rare legal victory for opponents of the Burmese government, but they predicted that it would have little effect on the outcome of the trial, which is scheduled to resume later this week. Suu Kyi, 63, could face up to five years in prison if she is convicted of having allowed an American to stay overnight at her house last month. Suu Kyi's defense team had asked the appeals court to reinstate three barred witnesses.
MIDDLE EAST
US Envoy Reassures and Presses a Wary Israel - Isabel Kershner, New York Times. President Obama’s Middle East envoy sought Tuesday to allay fears here of a fundamental breakdown in Israeli-American relations while alluding to abiding differences over Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and the formula for Israeli-Palestinian peace. After meeting with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the American envoy, George J. Mitchell, said it was “beyond any doubt that the United States’ commitment to the security of Israel remains unshakeable.” But he also pressed for a peace effort, saying that Israelis, Palestinians and other parties “share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations.” Mr. Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader who helped to forge a peace deal in Northern Ireland, came to Israel amid a rare public dispute over settlement activity.
US Envoy Says Ties with Israel 'Unshakable' - Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times. Seeking to calm a public spat with Israel, U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell assured its leaders Tuesday that American support for the Jewish state was "unshakable." But he said the Obama administration stood by a goal the new Israeli government has yet to embrace: an independent Palestinian state. Mitchell is visiting Israel and the West Bank to build on President Obama's commitment, spelled out last week in an address to the Muslim world, to work aggressively to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mitchell will go this week to Lebanon and Syria, his first visit to those countries as special Middle East envoy, to try to win Arab support for the initiative and to encourage peace talks between Syria and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been sharply at odds with the Obama administration recently over its insistence on halting Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. US officials have made it clear that they expect a settlement freeze, which Netanyahu rejects, as the first step toward reviving talks with the Palestinians.
Can Mitchell, Now in Israel, Calm Settlement Dispute? - Ilene R. Prusher, Christian Science Monitor. US special envoy George Mitchell arrived here Tuesday, poised to fast-forward President Barack Obama's plan for change in the Middle East. But due to Israeli resistance to a key facet of that plan - freezing West Bank settlement growth - Mr. Mitchell's trip is looking likely to be a diplomatic marathon, requiring the patient persistence he cultivated in Northern Ireland. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is loath to implement a settlement freeze, and many in his right-wing constituency support settlements or live in them, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Adding to the controversy, Mr. Netanyahu's interior minister, Eli Yishai, has vowed to reverse official "discrimination" against the 120-odd settlements and to allocate his ministry's reserve funds to their benefit, according a Monday report in the Haaretz newspaper.
Lebanon's Swing Vote - Washington Post editorial. In his Cairo address last week, President Obama cautioned that "elections alone do not make true democracy." That is true, of course -- but on Sunday, Lebanon offered a demonstration of how valuable a free and fair vote can be, even in a country where other political and human rights are not fully respected. A hotly contested parliamentary election produced an unexpectedly decisive victory for the pro-Western coalition that has led the Lebanese government for the past four years. The outcome was a sharp reverse for the Hezbollah movement and for Iran and Syria, which had hoped to establish dominion over Lebanon. The winning coalition of Sunni, Christian and Druze parties is no match for Hezbollah in the streets; the Islamist movement used force to seize control of most of Beirut last year, and it compelled the government to grant it veto power over its decisions. Hezbollah also launched a destructive war against Israel in 2006 that Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was powerless to stop. Rearmed by Iran and Syria, the Shiite movement may be able to use the same leverage on the next Lebanese government. But its political defeat, which leader Hassan Nasrallah was forced to acknowledge on Monday, probably will constrain its actions: It will be less likely to launch new provocations against Israel, for example. The prestige of Mr. Nasrallah, treated as a hero by the region's satellite television networks after the 2006 war, has been dented.
Ballots Over Bullets - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times opinion. I confess. I’m a sucker for free and fair elections. It warms my heart to watch people drop ballots in a box to express their will, especially in a region where that so rarely happens. So I came to Lebanon on Sunday to watch the Lebanese hold their national election. It was indeed free and fair — not like the pretend election you are about to see in Iran, where only candidates approved by the Supreme Leader can run. No, in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. OK, I know. Neither man was on the ballot, but there’s no question whose vision won here. First, a solid majority of Lebanese Christians voted against the list of Michel Aoun, who wanted to align their community with the Shiite Hezbollah party, and tacitly Iran, because he viewed them as being best able to protect Christian interests - not the West. The Christian majority voted instead for those who wanted to preserve Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence from any regional power.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times book review of The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney.
Soldiers of Misfortune - James Glanz, New York Times book review of Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage by Donovan Campbell.
A Counterinsurgency Primer - Max Boot, Wall Street Journal book review of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
Reluctant Warriors - The Economist book review of both The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas Ricks and The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
BOOKS
Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.
In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.
Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz
The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.
The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney
The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.
Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett
In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen
A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks
Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips
Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor
This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West
From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson
After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward
Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway
In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.
In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy
The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz
Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.
