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A Guest Post by Daniel Luban:
Earlier this week, I reported on the marked expansion in West Bank settlement construction in 2008, as documented in a just-released Peace Now report. This expansion occurred despite Ehud Olmert’s pledge at the beginning of the year to halt all construction.
Today, Haaretz revealed the findings of an even more significant [...]
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I guess this is breaking news on which I hope to have more to write later (I have a deadline on reporting Obama’s greenhouse-related announcements today), but I just confirmed that Elliott Abrams, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs since December 2002 and Deputy National Security [...]
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Ret. Col. Pat Lang, a former top Pentagon Middle East and South intelligence analyst, has weighed in very strongly against the prospective appointment of Dennis Ross to be the Obama administration’s special envoy on Iran on his blog which, while very conservative in political orientation, I make a point of reading at least every other [...]
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Intelligence analysts and diplomats must be poring over Obama’s carefully scripted remarks today at the State Department where he confirmed the appointment of Sen. George Mitchell as Special Envoy for the Middle East for clues as to precisely where U.S. diplomacy, particularly with respect to Israel and the Palestinians, is headed. (I wrote up the [...]
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The New York Times‘ Roger Cohen weighs in on Obama’s proposed Middle East team, and he’s not enthusiastic, to say the least. I think it’s very significant that the behind-the-scenes concern about Ross (and the other more or less conventional figures under consideration) has now moved to the Times’.
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I understand from various sources that Dennis Ross’ prospective status as Middle East super-envoy and, as the WINEP memo disclosed by The Nelson Report claimed, Clinton’s “top advisor on a wide range of Middle East issues, from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran,” is not yet a done deal.
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Back in July, I wrote a post on this blog with the title, “Is Petraeus Preparing to Betray the Neo-Cons?” in which I suggested that, given his expanded geographical jurisdiction as CentCom commander, Gen. David Petraeus, like the Joint Chiefs (and candidate Barack Obama for that matter) at the time, would soon see Afghanistan/Pakistan as [...]
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The matchless Nelson Report has updated the news about the prospective appointment of Dennis Ross as Special Envoy for Iran, and the update is even more concerning than the original report. Chris Nelson apparently got hold of an internal memo from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in which its director, Robert Satloff, [...]
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Perle Explains
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
Don’t miss Richard Perle’s comprehensive but remarkably unpersuasive explanation in The National Interest Online of how neo-conservatives, least of all himself, really exercised very little influence over the Bush administration’s policies, even in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Actually, you won’t find much of what he writes particularly new, and, if you were hoping [...]
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Very concerning news from the very excellent Nelson Report tonight — that Dennis Ross will become Special Envoy for Iran, reporting directly to SecState-designate Clinton, rather than to the White House. Chris Nelson has great sources everywhere, and, while he is much more an Asia hand than a Mideast expert, I have to take his [...]
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