Tag: peace process middle east

• December 12, 2011

  Ineffective tightening of sanctions on Iran

  

  This article originally appeared on the Al Jazeeera English website on Dec. 12, 2011.  You can view it by clicking here .

  Washington, DC – There is a long record of the grim effects of sanctions in international struggles against those states deemed as “rogue”. Sanctions are seen as righteous instruments, a non-violent way to pressure problematic regimes to change. But when you really don’t care about a country or its people, then your true attitudes emerge in the way in which you use the sanctions instrument of policy.

  Let’s take Iraq. Based on estimates of the massive increase in child mortality rates through the years of the sanctions in the 1990s, anywhere from 300,000 to a million people lost their lives. But no one in Saddam’s inner circle, none of the wealthy, and none of the killers, died from those sanctions. Such sanctions were touted as an enlightened and …

• August 2, 2009

  U.S. Pressure on Arab States Grows, But It Misses Where Hope Lies

  U.S. Pressure on Arab States Grows
  By Kim Ghattas

  The Obama administration has been frustrated by the lack of movement on all sides but has reportedly been particularly disappointed by how little Arab countries have been willing to do or even promise.

  Wary from past experience of negotiating with the Israelis, the official Arab position has been one of “show us the goods, then we will talk”.

  Link to BBC Article.

  This just about sums about what I have seen and heard in the region. No one is in the mood for more talk of rapprochement with Israel. With the United States, definitely. There is still a hope that the United States will provide the leadership to move governments in the region toward a new direction of engagement with their people. But the war on Gaza was far more of a watershed than anyone understands in Western capitals, especially in …