In a 2006 Gallup poll, 9% of the Muslim world thought that the Q’ran should be the only source of national law; 46% that it should be a source. Unsurprising? And what if I tell you that this is not true but is the transposition of the results of a poll of Americans, 9% of [...]

Like many others, I’ve always believed that peace in the Greater Middle East begins with resolving the Israel-Palestine issue.  I have changed my mind.   I now believe that the key to peace begins with the Iran-US axis, not on the Israel-Palestine dispute.  And agreement with Iran is becomng a real possibility.  Barack Obama’s approach [...]

How did the United Nations and its leading member countries make such a mess of the racism conference in Geneva this week, dubbed ‘Durham II”?To try to answer this question requires other questions to be addressed: How can the UN Human Rights Council have credibility, given its anti-Israeli bias? With the experience of Durban I [...]

I’ve been struggling since Barack Obama entered the White House over what attitude to take towards NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan.  One side of me does not believe we can achieve even limited goals; the other side says that we Europeans should support the new president.    The principal objective of the Obama policy is to [...]

I’ve been struggling since Barack Obama entered the White House over what my attitude towards NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan should be.  One side of me does not believe we can achieve even limited goals; the other side says that we Europeans should support the new president.    The principal objective of the Obama policy is [...]

This post is inspired by an excellent debate hosted last Friday by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, which examined “Israel-Palestine in the New political Configuration: Future Prospects.” Two ideas strike me as worth consideration, despite the current negative political environment in both Israel and Palestine.  The first is to establish an international trusteeship; and the second [...]

The Financial Times rightly opined, in a leader today, that the West needs achievable goals in Afghanistan and has to stop scoring own goals.  Simply increasing the number of troops is not enough: a new strategy is needed.  The trust of the Afghans has to be won, and this is impossible so long as western [...]

I have been disinclined to blog again on the Israel-Palestine quarrel, seeing no hope of progress towards peace, and indeed believing that the two-state solution could be dead.  However, Simone Susskind’s article of 19 January, “Israel and Gaza: We’re waiting, Mr Obama”, persuaded me otherwise.    She neither attempted to review history nor to apportion [...]

Who would have thought in 1979 or 1989 that in 2009 Russian officials would be warning that US and NATO-led forces are exactly repeating the same mistakes made by the Soviet Union when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979?      The post of 28 January asked: How long will it take Obama before he plans [...]

Amazingly, Muammar Qaddafi wrote an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune on 22 January.  He advocates a one-state solution but a prerequisite is the right of return for the Palestinian refugees: this is a non-starter. However, the constructiveness and balance of the article deserve attention, whatever the Libyan leader’s motive for having the article published.  [...]