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Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. A Military Strike on Iran's Nuclear Infrastructure?by Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/06/a-military-strike-on-irans-nuclear-infrastructure
Whether or not Iran's nuclear buildup will be stopped is the most urgent topic in the Middle East these days. I will occasionally note important developments on that issue here. "Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites": In a sensational report, Hugh Tomlinson writes in the Times (London) that
Tomlinson quotes a U.S. defense source in the area: "The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way. They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren't scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the State Department." He explains the logic behind this decision:
Comment: "Interesting if true" is my response. For reasons outlined in "Some Common Sense in Egypt and Saudi Arabia," I am skeptical that the Saudi leadership will allow Israeli overflights. Hope I am wrong. (June 12, 2010) Surprising support for a military strike: The Pew Global Attitudes survey asked in 22 countries "Which is more important: Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action, OR avoiding a military conflict, even if they may develop nuclear weapons?" The results:
There are many surprises here:
(June 17, 2010) Related Topics: Iran, Public opinion polls, US policy Hafiz al-Asad and Meby Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2010/06/hafiz-al-asad-and-me
Hafiz al-Asad (also spelled Hafez al-Assad) died ten years ago today, prompting some personal reflections: I worked the Syria topic for 15 years, 1985-2000, writing one major academic study, two monographs, and many journal articles, newspaper articles, and book reviews – in all, about 100 publications. Because of my hostility to the regime, however, other than two visits to the country as a student in 1972 and 1973, I was not allowed to return, even when such august institutions as Reader's Digest and the U.S. government sponsored my travel. The death of Hafiz al-Asad then brought my Syria specialty to an abrupt end. This monstrous but fascinating leader had intrigued me, especially his quasi-surreptitious pan-Syrian ideology, his double-game playing, and his ability to make Syria more important than it should have been. Just over a year later, the enormity of 9/11 further wrenched me away from matters Syrian.
In retrospect, I note that those 15 years of study focused more on the figure of Hafiz al-Asad than on the country of Syria. And so, with Asad's passing, my interest waned. His son and successor, Bashshar (also spelled Bashar), inherited a well-functioning tyranny that he has maintained reasonably well. But Bashshar al-Asad could sustain neither the horrifyingly repressive internal apparatus (e.g., some 20,000 killed in Hama in 1982) nor the wildly ambitious foreign policy that put Damascus at the center of most Middle Eastern issues (pan-Syrianism is defunct). Syria has become just another boring dictatorship. (June 10, 2010) Related Topics: Daniel Pipes autobiographical, Syria This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. | |||||||||
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