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In-Depth Coverage

Original Commentaries

08/20/10
Center for American Progress Welcomes Resumption of Direct Talks  —
08/10/10
A View from the Ground  —Darbaz Kosrat Rasul, chair, Rebaz Foundation. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.
08/03/10
U.S.-Turkish Relations  —Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone, Jr., recently returned deputy ambassador in Afghanistan; former ambassador to Egypt (2005-2008); and deputy chief of mission and charge d'affaires in U.S. embassy in Turkey (1995-1999). Congressional Testimony.

Setting the Record Straight

Eye Still on the Ball

“Adverse developments in Iraq will be (and will look to be) increasingly a function of the Obama Team taking their eye off of the ball and rushing to declare mission accomplished. Yes, in such a scenario the Iraqis should bear most of the blame, but the part that is due to U.S. action or inaction will be Obama's responsibility. And it will matter. Iraq is at the center of a region that every president since Jimmy Carter has identified as vital to our national security. Iraq is next door to, and the playground for mischief from, the most thorny national security challenge the United States faces: a nuclear-weapons-seeking Iranian regime. These inconvenient facts mean that if the Iraqi situation demands more focused and costly U.S. attention, it will likely get it. At that point, what sort of domestic coalition will be available for President Obama's Iraq policy?”
—Peter Feaver, director, Triangle Institute for Security Studies; former director for defense policy and arms control, National Security Council, “Obama’s Iraq Speech: Another Missed Opportunity,” Foreign Policy, August 3, 2010versus
  • “Iraq is a strategically important place in the Middle East, just by its geographic location, by its population, by the influence it's had in the Middle East for a long time. So neighboring countries from around the Middle East have an interest inside of Iraq.

    “But I will tell you that I think Iraqis themselves are nationalistic in nature, and that's why it's important. A strong Iraq will defend itself against interference from outside countries, and I think as we build a strong Iraq and as we continue to build a strong security mechanism and as we continue to help them economically and diplomatically, that will make it less likely of others from the outside being able to interfere.

    “Now, for the vacuum as we see today, again, I remind everyone is that we still have a significant presence here, and we are not going to—we will not allow undue maligned influence on the Iraqi government as they attempt to form their government. What we're trying to do is provide them the space and time for them to do that, and we will continue to do that post 1 September. We'll still have a significant civilian presence, and again, we'll still have 50,000 troops on the ground here to ensure that this government can be formed by the Iraqis. And that all the other nations respect their sovereignty as they go about forming their government.”
    —General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, interview, “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour, August 8, 2010

    • Middle East Analysis

    Upcoming Events

    The Road Forward on Middle East Peace

    Event: October 1, 2009 - 12:00pm-1:00pm

    Introduction:
    Winnie Stachelberg, Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Center for American Progress

    Featured speaker:
    Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL)

    Moderated by:
    Moran Banai, U.S. Editor of Middle East Bulletin

    WATCH HERE

    The 12th Year

    Noa Rotman, granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, published in Yedioth Ahronoth, adapted for Middle East Bulletin

    My memory is worn, scarred, stimulated and pained. Once a year, I sit shiva in the national mourners’ hut, wearing a three-piece suit, hair styled, everything in place, crying reservedly. Once a year, they bring out my grandparents’ freckled wonder girl to say something touching, something authentic and real, while all made up for the cameras, hoping that she won’t forget to top it off with an interesting anecdote from her last encounter with him. The wonder girl, who turned 30 this year, who has the first hint of wrinkles around her eyes, isn’t sure how to sort between realities and revised memories, among the images in her head.
    My memory is worn, but the jailed murderer, it seems, is not. He has enjoyed conjugal visits with his fiance. His fiance, who was introduced to him by right-wing activists since he was sent to prison and who divorced her husband to carry on a horrifying lineage, has been waiting to clutch her son. What sickening timing, for this child, , the result of a repugnant merger between pure satisfied evil, brought into the covenant as our dark reality is teetering on the edge of hell.

    Our bodies hang on the edge of this abyss. It is a long, long row; this is the twelfth journey to this infinity; our fates on the silver platter of Israeli talkback culture, asking and being asked once again, to remember, with great pathos, and never to forget. Actually no, devoid of pathos, but rather with Rabinesque sincerity, feeling a pain that never abates, slightly ashamed, left with a suppressed anger presented with a civic smile. As everyone expects.

    We make our way to another school named after him, with a choir comprised of sweet kids who today may want to remember him, but tomorrow may join the choir of those who dispute his legacy, wishing once again to believe that more people miss that man, whom we have been mourning for twelve years. Occasionally someone reprimands us for refusing to move on.

    My memory hurts. How does it hurt? It hurts like longing, like a broken heart. Why use the word ‘like’? My heart is truly broken. Maybe I’m blessed because I used to have a normal family, with an omelet in the evening and a warm blanket at story time before bed, with pajamas with a faint smell of laundry detergent, with the table set for Friday night dinner, with cakes and relatives. And when everything shattered and we almost became a meager copy of the family we once had been—a faded row of almost painfully beautiful, mourning figureheads—I decided to rescue the remnants of the family I had and stopped cooperating with the collective memory.

    After we stayed quiet for some time, we realized that wouldn’t work, because people said we were too quiet and that we had stopped remembering, that we were a lesser generation than our predecessors. But wait - just a moment ago it seemed like the winds of silence were blowing: after excess talk, mounds of criticism and garbage piled up on our queen mother, our beloved grandmother Leah, who was scorned until she was reduced to nothing, fading away in front of the news cameras on Mount Herzl.

    My memory is pained, my anger has been provoked, my soul is tired, and my life has only just begun.

    Please rise for the singing of our national anthem.