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Turkey as a significant player in the Middle East

Josh and I both see an increasingly confident and effective Turkey as a player to watch in the region in the coming decade (see http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2009/12/few_brights_spots_in_middle_ea.html )

Amplify’d from joshualandis.com

Has Obama Outsourced the Job of Chastizing Israel to Turkey?

The West has remained surprisingly silent in the Israel-Turkey spat. Erdoghan has won boisterous praise in the East, and few reprimands in the West for his tough criticism of Israel. Western politicians from one end of the political spectrum to the other are silently, satisfied to see Israel’s leadership brought up short for continuing to implant its citizens in the heart of what should be a future Palestinian state, making a mockery of Western efforts to jump-start negotiations, and ignoring regional peace offers.

As Turkey assumes regional leadership, it will become a powerful and confident new voice in international affairs.Read more at joshualandis.com
 

You say you want a revolution…

I’m leaning towards the ‘no revolution’ side, myself. They’re hellishly difficult things to get done. But Iran can always surprise.

Amplify’d from www.opendemocracy.net

Is Iran heading towards another revolution?

Iran’s history contains three millennia of despotism, but also three revolutions in the past century alone. The current unrest may suggest that another is on its way. It poses formidable challenges to both the current regime and the moderate reformist leadership
Read more at www.opendemocracy.net
Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely

THE Islamic Republic of Iran is not about to implode. Nevertheless, the misguided idea that it may do so is becoming enshrined as conventional wisdom in Washington.

See more at www.nytimes.com
 

David Bromwich on Obama: harsh - but fair?

The whole is well worth reading.

Amplify’d from www.lrb.co.uk
There are people in America who sniff the taint of tyranny in every programme of the federal government; and a lot of them were listening to their radios in April, May, June and July. But there have also been grounds for fear that were genuine: a fact the prosperous neoliberal consensus lightly brushed off. Non-fanatical Americans of modest means have wondered how their children will pay for the emergency measures we are buying now but refusing to tax ourselves for.

Obama’s speech on 9 September arrived too late to work as a counter-charm.

The pattern of the major announcement, the dilatory follow-up and the tardy self-defence has shown an alarming consistency in his administration.

he is forever giving new hostages to the truckle of compromise; he is put in the position of backing away while his enemies pick up strength; and in a leader whose nature is conciliatory, this means that the declared scope of every undertaking slowly shrinks and recedesRead more at www.lrb.co.uk