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20 June 2010

BBC  Syria's Bashar al-Assad: A leader who cannot be ignored…..1

HAARETZ  Give them an inquiry……………………………….………..4

 The patriot………………………………………..………….6

FOREIGN POLICY  Has the U.S. lost its ability to shield Israel at the U.N.?...... 9

 It Takes Two to Reset………………………………………11

 The hollow Arab core………………………………………14

MIDEAST YOUTH  A safe haven for Iraqi Christians in Damascus…………….18 HOME PAGE Syria's Bashar al-Assad: A leader who cannot be ignored Meeting Syria's Bashar al-Assad By Jeremy Bowen BBC News, Damascus 20 June 2010,

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad says that Israel is not a "partner for peace" and that "when you don't have peace you have to expect war". But the country has other partners in the region, and further afield.

In the narrow lanes and covered alleys of the old city of Damascus, you can buy fridge magnets showing black and white photos of Syria's first family in the days of its patriarch, President Hafez al-Assad. 2 His son Bashar inherited the job when he died 10 years ago. On the magnets you can see Bashar and his siblings on their bikes in the early seventies, watched lovingly by their smiling parents.

Just like any other happy family - except that dad was an air force general who had seized power in one of the coups that were practically annual events in Syria for 20 years after the trauma of the creation of Israel in 1948.

While the kids were having fun on their new bikes, Assad senior was redefining the phrase "iron grip".

Central, once more Hafez Assad was the kind of Middle Eastern leader about whom people used words like calculating, ruthless, and dominating. He sent in tanks and artillery to crush a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama in 1982, killing thousands.

He was a formidable negotiator. The story goes that he made sure the US Secretary of State Warren Christopher was served many

2 glasses of tea during marathon diplomatic talks - but never offered a bathroom break.

Bashar Assad is a very different man. On the couple of times I have met him he has been friendly, even charming, and answered the questions he has been asked.

He conducts interviews with foreign reporters in a walnut-panelled library in a guest house next to the presidential palace, on a hill overlooking Damascus.

Apparently a famous Japanese architect designed it as a family home back in the 1980s, though the Assads have never lived there. It feels like a small and luxurious Middle Eastern hotel, lots of marble and mother of pearl inlaid furniture.

Ten years after what his father made sure was a smooth succession Syria is back at the centre of all of the big issues of war and peace 3 in the region. And President Assad the second has become, like his father, a Middle Eastern leader who cannot be ignored.

Troublesome old friends Syria under Bashar Assad is trying to face in all directions at the same time. Perhaps improbably, the policy is working pretty well.

“ The Iran connection puts Syria dangerously close to the centre of the growing and dangerous crisis over Iran's nuclear plans ”

Countries who want to get closer include Russia, France, Turkey and diplomatically ambitious Brazil. Iran has been an ally since his father's time. Syria and Iran are the main backers of Hezbollah, Israel's implacable enemy in Lebanon.

The Americans want a rapprochement, as long as he drops some of his troublesome old friends in Beirut and Tehran. That he says he won't do - even though the Iran connection puts Syria dangerously close to the centre of the growing and dangerous crisis over Iran's nuclear plans.

3 Here in Damascus the regime operates on different wavelengths at once as well. Facebook is blocked in Syria. But the first lady has her own page with several thousand friends.

Damascus feels much more open than it did in the first President Assad's time. But human rights campaigners and political dissidents get locked up, as this is still a police state.

Secret police A few years ago I went to see a lawyer, a critic of the regime, who had just been released from prison and was heading back there fast.

He had a black eye, given to him by a couple of thugs who had jumped off a motorcycle outside his block of flats and beaten him up, without saying a word. Their fists were doing the talking and he assumed the message was from the secret police.

4 Half close your eyes and you could have been with a dissident intellectual in Eastern Europe in the seventies or eighties.

And then there's Israel. For years, Israelis have believed it should be easier to make peace with Syria than with the Palestinians. The main reason is that giving back the occupied Golan Heights to Syria would be far less controversial inside Israel than giving up the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

As well as that, the secular Syrian regime is seen as pragmatic, as long as the deal is right. But President Assad said in our interview that there was no hope of making peace with the current Israeli government, not unless they changed their behaviour.

And there's another problem. Syrian-Israeli peace talks in the last few years have been indirect, mediated by a neighbour - Turkey. And since Israeli troops killed nine Turks on the Gaza flotilla, Turkey doesn't believe the Netanyahu government is serious about peace either.

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4 Give them an inquiry Rather than investigating Israel's deadly raid of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, an international inquiry should look into how Israel managed to sell its destructive Gaza policies to the countries of the world. By Zvi Bar'el Haaretz, 20 June 2010,

They want an international commission of inquiry to investigate the events of the raid on the Gaza flotilla? No problem - on condition that it is truly international: the kind that has UN secretaries-general over the years give testimony, as well as U.S. presidents, European leaders, Turkish presidents past and present, and all those who turned their backs when they knew what was going on in the Gaza Strip and agreed to the siege policy until the flotilla. All those who allowed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to go on undisturbed and who felt that Gaza was a humanitarian, not a political problem. 5

It is fascinating to read UN resolutions on the Gaza Strip. They are perfectly laid out and usually begin with words like "we call on the sides," "we regard with gravity," "we support the Arab initiative," "we endorse previous UN resolutions," which were never implemented, of course. Empty words that were wasted on the sentences in which they were used. There was no banging on the table, not a single resolution on dispatching an international force, as if Gaza were not a combat zone but an unavoidable natural disaster; something the aid organizations should handle, not the politicians; a solution with aid convoys, not sanctions.

True, Israel is the one that imposed the siege and jailed 1.5 million civilians in a prison into which it threw food and medicine, following a very orderly list and in line with the number of calories each person needs to survive. Everyone watched, heard and remained silent - the Turkish prime minister and president, who until Operation Cast Lead did not really raise their voices, two American presidents, two UN secretaries-general, and European heads of state. In other words, they spoke endlessly,

5 initiated resolutions, tried to mediate, but in the end raised their hands in surrender. After all, it is an internal Israeli-Palestinian matter that does not really pose a threat to world peace. A million and a half jailed Palestinians? It's Hamas' fault, not Israel's.

Until suddenly it turns out that the Gaza Strip, an empty area without petroleum or diamond wealth, strategically insignificant for the powers, could stir an international crisis. Relations between Israel and Turkey hit a reef, relations between the United States and Turkey are being reevaluated, the Jewish lobby is working overtime in Congress to push the administration to censure Turkey, Germany and the United States are trying to mediate between Israel and Turkey, and Turkish assistance to the international force in Afghanistan is being weighed. Meanwhile, Turkey enjoys great popularity in the Arab and Muslim world, but also threatens the Egyptian and Muslim monopoly for resolving the conflicts in the region. And Israel once more appears to be an irrational burden on U.S. policy in the region. 6 It also suddenly turns out that when the Gaza Strip manages to stir an international crisis, it is possible to ease the conditions of the siege. The list of items that can be imported is stretched like a rubber band. And people are beginning to talk about conditions for operating the Rafah crossing, the European Union is once more proposing to come back and supervise it, and mostly, Washington has awoken and is flexing a muscle. Not because the people of Gaza have been transformed into something the world is genuinely interested in; they have become a strategic threat. Where were all these critics, all the countries that have signed the UN's human rights conventions, when the siege was put in place and the blockade became asphyxiating?

An international inquiry into the foolishness of Israel's policy is unnecessary. There is no need to busy the world with something that is obvious and needs no proof. An international inquiry into the reasons and ways Turkish citizens were killed should also not be created. This is a subject for a joint Turkish-Israeli inquiry that should be set up quickly.

6 An international inquiry should have a different mandate: to look into how Israel managed to sell its destructive policy to the countries of the world, how they agreed to the jailing of 1.5 million people without a UN resolution. They should look into the international significance of the fact that a member of the UN decides to take such a step, and the international organization that now wants to investigate can't prevent that step, or forcefully act to cancel it. This is not a commission of inquiry against Israel but against UN headquarters in Manhattan. This is also the reason that such a committee will not be formed. It is much simpler to reach a plea bargain with Israel.

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The patriot What does the Israeli patriot want? What state exactly does he dream of before 7 falling asleep at night? What society does he hope for while immersed in his morning routine? By Gideon Levy Haaretz, 20 June 2010,

What does the Israeli patriot want? What state exactly does he dream of before falling asleep at night? What society does he hope for while immersed in his morning routine? Incitement, slander and boycott campaigns have recently been launched here against Turkey, Sweden, the High Court of Justice, B'Tselem, the New Israel Fund, the media, Richard Goldstone, Noam Chomsky, Elvis Costello, the Pixies, Ahmed Tibi, Hanin Zuabi, Tali Fahima, Barack Obama, Anat Kamm and the rest of the world, and also a bit against yours truly. A hypocritical, fallacious and depressing worldview emerges from these campaigns.

No, he is not a villain, the Israeli patriot - he is merely brainwashed and blind.

7 He would like to live in a democracy - of course he wants democracy; after all, he was taught in school that it is a good thing, and he boasts to the world that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East." But it's a democracy without most of its mechanisms. He is satisfied with elections and majority rule: The majority will make the decisions, and to hell with the minority.

The Israeli patriot wants to open a newspaper and turn on the television and see what's going on in the world - but only a world in which everything is good. Well, if not the entire world, then at least Israel, as long as it's all good. He wants to take in lots of World Cup soccer, entertainment programs, loads of gossip, and most importantly - only good news. He wants only commentators who "smash" the Arabs and "bash" the left-wingers and other Israel haters, and who call for strikes on Gaza, Hezbollah, Iran and Istanbul again and again.

He is a man of peace, the patriot, but he also wants a war once 8 every two to three years and he wants the media to say so, too. He doesn't really want to know what happened during Operation Cast Lead, or what the world - which hates us - thinks of us and why. He doesn't want to know what is going on in the territories or among the poor, screwed, underprivileged people.

But wonder of wonders, if he feels deprived, where does he run? To the newspapers and the TV, which he loves to hate. He also loves to hate those left-wingers from the High Court of Justice, but the moment he's in any kind of trouble, where does he turn? To the court, of course.

The Israeli patriot wants the world to love us unconditionally and without limits. Yet at the same time, he wants to ignore the whole world and spit contemptuously on its institutions, conventions and laws. He wants a package deal with Turkey, all-inclusive, but not including listening to what the Turks have to say. He wants to spread white phosphorus in Gaza and have the world recite, like himself, that it's white rain. He wants the United Nations to impose sanctions on Iran, but to disregard its own resolutions

8 related to Israel. He wants a half-Iranian regime here, but portrayed as liberal in all the tourist guidebooks.

The world according to the Israeli patriot consists, in fact, only of the United States - but even then only to a certain extent. Obama's America is also starting to get suspicious. The patriot wants America to foot the bill and shut up. He wants the Jewish world to contribute money, to embrace us, to come here in masses with the Taglit-Birthright program. But if J Street, JCall, Goldstone or Chomsky arise from among the Jews, he will hasten to brand them anti-Semites. They're either with us or against us - even the Jews.

He wants a Knesset that represents the people, meaning his kind of people - without Ahmed Tibi and Hanin Zuabi, preferably without any Arabs at all, and if we must then only Ayoob Kara. Let them travel overseas to stretch out on tzadiks' graves, but only in Jewish communities, not in Libya. Let them fight to free abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, but not the myriad prisoners of their own people. 9 Shalit? The Israeli patriot wants his release, as all Israelis do, but not, under any circumstances, in exchange for freeing terrorists. He also wants NGOs around and donations coming in from abroad, but only to synagogues and hospitals. And above all, he wants to protect Israeli soldiers and their commanders, unconditionally. They must remain immune from any criticism. They killed two women waving a white flag in Gaza? They shot a Jerusalem driver at close range? They killed - perhaps unnecessarily - Turks on a flotilla? Anyone who mentions such things is a traitor.

This is the patriot's impossible country. It is doubtful whether even he actually enjoys living in it. So when will he criticize his beloved country? In the never-ending traffic jam, in the endless queue, and of course, when the IDF isn't killing enough. Any other criticism? No thank you, I'm a patriot.

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9 Has the U.S. lost its ability to shield Israel at the U.N.? Colum Lynch, Foreign Policy Magazine, 16 June 2010,

Two weeks ago, it looked like the United States had once against prevailed in its effort to block the establishment of an outside investigation into Israel's actions against Palestinian militants, as U.S. diplomats at the United Nations successfully gutted a Turkish proposal to set up an international probe into the deadly Israel commando raid on an aid flotilla.

But the effort faced an unexpected challenge from U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, who has traditionally deferred to Washington on Middle East matters. Early this week, Ban made clear that an Israeli-run investigation was not enough and that he will persist in his efforts to establish an international panel in the face of American and Israeli resistance. Ban's "proposal for an 10 international inquiry remains on the table and he hopes for a positive Israeli response," said Ban's spokesman Farhan Haq on Monday.

The United States has privately urged Ban and others to allow the Israeli probe to be given a chance to demonstrate its credibility. But Washington has not used its position within the Security Council to block Ban's effort, according to U.N. diplomats. "We know for a fact that that there is no objection in the Security Council to the efforts of the secretary-general," Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, told reporters on Tuesday.

Ban's demand for a probe contrasts with his previous response to calls for an international investigation into Israel's conduct during its military campaign in Gaza. In that case, Ban deferred to the Human Rights Council, which appointed South African lawyer Richard Goldstone to probe Israeli and Palestinian conduct, and then resisted demands from the Palestinians backers to follow up on the Goldstone's controversial findings. At the time, the U.N.'s principal powers, including the United States, China, Russia, and

10 the Europeans, were also reluctant to pursue war crimes investigations against Israel.

But this time around there is broad support for a U.N. probe into the flotilla raid. Turkey Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu traveled to New York immediately after the flotilla raid to press the Security Council to condemn Israel and set up an international inquiry. After several hours of negotiations, the U.S. prevailed in watering down the final resolution, which simply calls for a credible, impartial probe. After the vote, U.S. and Israelis officials contended that Israel was in a position to conduct such an investigation on its own. On June 6, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Ban's proposal to have a former New Zealand prime minister, Geoffrey Palmer, lead an investigation into the flotilla raid. Instead, Israel late last week proposed its own investigation, with the participation of two international observers from Ireland and Canada.

11 But the issued has not died. On Tuesday, Turkey's U.N. ambassador Ertugal Apakan made an impassioned plea that the "only reasonable way forward" was to back Ban's call for an international investigation, according to a council member. "Turkey is pushing very hard," the council diplomat said. "Erdogan is under big pressure domestically to promote an independent, international investigation." The council diplomat said that "a vast majority" of council members would be willing to support Ban's call for an international probe. "If the Americans give in, I think everybody else would agree to that."

So far, the U.S. has not shown its cards. Alejandro Wolff, the second-highest ranking U.S. ambassador at the U.N., told the Security Council Tuesday that the U.S. believes that Israel should be given an opportunity to prove that it can conduct a credible investigation, according to council diplomats. He said that Israel's findings should be made public and for consideration by the international community. But he did not comment on Ban's proposal to press ahead with an investigation.

11 As for Ban's next step, the U.N. chief "thinks a thorough Israeli national investigation can be important but he believes it is not incompatible with what he has been proposing: which is an international panel to look into ... what happened," Robert Serry, the U.N. special envoy for the Middle East peace process, told reporters.

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It Takes Two to Reset The Obama administration's efforts to reach out to Russia won't work as long as Russians don't take them seriously. LILIA SHEVTSOVA, Foreign Policy, 16 June 2010,

With Russian President Dmitry Medvedev due to visit Washington 12 next week, Barack Obama's administration is seemingly anxious to tout improved U.S. relations with Russia as one of its primary foreign-policy achievements. The two countries have "made significant strides in resetting relations" said the White House statement announcing the visit, a reference to the widely touted "reset button" policy announced last year. "President Obama and President Medvedev have collaborated closely to enhance the security and well-being of the American and Russian people," the statement continued.

The U.S. line on the reset is that agreement between the two sides on issues of mutual concern will help build the confidence needed for the United States to be able to make progress on other priorities. The American side apparently hopes that the reset will help Medvedev, who, unlike his predecessor, seems genuinely interested in rapprochement with the United States, consolidate his power. In light of all this, it would not be prudent to irritate Moscow with attempts to remodel Russia.

12 On the surface, the U.S. administration would seem to have every reason to consider this policy a success. Compared with the open hostility of 2008, U.S.-Russian relations have warmed up considerably. The two countries are now working together in areas of vital importance for the United States, including containing Iran and working to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, and the concessions made to Moscow seem minor. In short, the pragmatic line followed by Obama's team looks to be effective.

The problem is that neither Kremlin politicians and analysts nor opposition Russian liberals see it this way. Many view arms control and nuclear proliferation as U.S. concerns with little political salience within Russia. As Sergei Markov, a Duma member and Kremlin mouthpiece, has argued, the reset is "not just about an agreement on START, but about the status of the Russian Federation and whether Russia is a great power or not."

The Kremlin is willing to help Obama try to earn his Nobel Peace 13 Prize as long as he's aware that the reset is possible only on Russian terms: Don't meddle in Moscow's affairs; recognize its spheres of interest; and help with its economic modernization. The United States has fulfilled the first two conditions so far, but help on the third is not yet in sight. Moscow therefore must take a firmer line in bargaining with Washington: All concessions must be prepaid.

The statements from Russian leaders are hardly subtle. "I will not say we are opponents [of the United States], but we are not friends either," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said shortly before the signing of the new START nuclear treaty in March. Lavrov has also suggested that Russia might pull out of the treaty if the United Statespresses forward with its missile-defense plans in Eastern Europe.

Gleb Pavlovsky, an influential political analyst closely linked to the Kremlin elite, was even more blunt. "Let's not kid ourselves," he said last summer in a magazine interview. "Obama is no ally of ours. Remember, Obama has no support and is on the brink of an abyss. ... He needs us more than we need him."

13 We are dealing with two completely different ways of thinking here. Where U.S. officials see dialogue, compromises, and concessions as a means of embracing and winning over the other side, the Russian elite consider dialogue, not to mention concessions, to be a sign of weakness.

Is mutual trust possible when the two sides have such different perceptions of reality? I don't think that U.S. officials are naive. But if they are aware of the Russian government's guiding mentality, they should see the obvious problems with the strategy they have been following.

First of all, a return to the arms talks, and therefore a return to the mechanisms of the Cold War, is not exactly the best way to build trust.

There's also little reason to think that the reset will strengthen the 14 hand of the allegedly reformist Medvedev. Kremlin insiders don't consider the reset's deliverables so far to be anything worth celebrating, and if the Kremlin fails to obtain U.S. agreement on any one of its conditions -- not exactly outside the realm of possibility -- the reset will be considered a failure and will only make Medvedev's situation more difficult. No wonder Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has distanced himself from the reset project -- he'll have an easy scapegoat if things go south.

Even Medvedev has taken steps to assure the public that he is no pro-American softie. Speaking in Argentina shortly after the signing of the new START treaty, he told a local audience that "if somebody is bothered" in America by Moscow's seeking a greater role in Latin America, "we want to spit on that." His "spit on that" remark led the Russian television news for days.

If the Americans do understand Moscow's motives and are aware of the above-mentioned paradoxes, then they are taking part in a flimsy facsimile of engagement. Partnerships in which the two sides willfully ignore each other's motives don't have a great track

14 record. Obama need only ask his predecessor how the Bush administration's early efforts to engage Putin went.

But what if the Obama team sincerely believes in the Kremlin's positive evolution, Medvedev's commitment to rapprochement, and the possibility that simply working with the Russian regime will change it for the better? In that case, Russian leaders will likely continue to offer concessions on issues they don't really care about while taking advantage of Washington's lenience to bolster their anti-liberal and anti-Western political regime.

Washington may have won tactical victories with new the START and Iran sanctions, but it has created a new strategic challenge by helping to legitimize the obsolete Russian political system and convincing it that it can win any concession from Washington in the name of keeping dialogue going.

Let's hope that the United States has a "Plan B" up its sleeve to 15 effect a real Russian transformation when it turns out the reset has not only failed, but has even had exactly the opposite effect of what was intended.

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The hollow Arab core Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy, 17 June 2010,

"So the Arab core grows hollow," laments former Bush administration Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams in the Weekly Standard today. Most of the essay is an unexceptional restatement of neo-conservative tropes: Obama is weak, Arabs only respect power, Turkey has become a radical Islamist enemy... you can fill in the rest of the blanks. But the lament about the hollowness of the Arab core deserves more careful attention. Why has the Arab core grown so hollow? After all, the Arab core --- in his definition, mostly Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- has been closely aligned with

15 the United States for many decades, and its leaders cooperated very closely with the Bush administration on virtually every issue. This points to a contradiction at the core of the approach favored by Abrams. The cooperation by these Arab leaders, in the face of widespread and deep hostility towards those policies among much of the Arab public, contributed immensely towards stripping away their legitimacy and driving them towards ever greater repression. The approach outlined so ably by Abrams isn't the solution to the problem of this "hollow Arab core." It is one of its causes. And the problem with Obama administration's regional diplomacy thus far has been that it has changed too little.. not too much.

To explain the feebleness of the Arab core compared to Turkey and Iran, Abrams focuses primarily on the advancing age of Hosni Mubarak and Saud al-Faisal. Twenty years ago, he argues, these were men to be feared. But now they are unable to muster the same persuasive powers and have no obvious replacements. As a result of their dwindling powers, he suggests, Qatar's relatively 16 young Foreign Minister and "clever, unprincipled, energetic actors" such as Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu can drive the agenda. This is an oddly personalized view of diplomacy. Qatar's diplomacy may be clever, but its ability to deploy its staggering wealth probably makes others inclined to appreciate its cleverness. Turkish leaders may be clever and energetic, but they also command a country with a powerful military and robust economy, membership in NATO, and real and growing soft power appeal across the region.

The advancing age of a few individuals is not on its own a satisfying explanation for the declining influence of Arab leaders. States like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have lost influence not only because of their leaders' advancing age, but also because of the deep unpopularity of many of the policies they have been led to defend by the United States. A more vigorous Hosni Mubarak would not make Egypt's role in enforcing the blockade of Gaza more attractive to most Arabs. Abrams, who has long been a vocal advocate of democracy promotion in the Middle East, would likely agree that the stultifying repression in these countries has impeded the emergence of new leaders. But he, like many

16 neoconservative advocates of democracy promotion, rarely addresses head on the reality that the policies pursued by these friendly autocrats in support of U.S. policy objectives contribute deeply to the unpopularity of those regimes. The Arab core has been hollowed out in large part because of, not in spite of, its role in American foreign policy.

The Bush administration sought to polarize the Middle East into an axis of "moderates" -- grouping Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other like-minded Sunni autocrats with Israel -- against "radicals" such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The Arab leaders on which the U.S. relied mostly went along, cooperating to a considerable degree in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and siding against Hezbollah in the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon and against Hamas during the 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza. But Arab public opinion was largely on the other side, with broad majorities of the population in most of those Arab countries angrily denouncing both the Israeli wars and their own leaders for the 17 positions they took in line with American preferences. To contain this popular anger and to continue to help American policies (such as Egypt's enforcing the blockade of Gaza), those Arab regimes became increasingly repressive. It is not an accident that after all the Bush administration's rhetoric about democracy promotion, it almost completely abandoned such efforts by early 2006 after the electoral victory by Hamas, and its legacy was a Middle East considerably less democratic than when it took office.

It is also not an accident that the two most vital, energetic forces in the region today, Qatar and Turkey, are the two countries which have tried the hardest to break away from the Bush administration's polarized world view. Each attempted to play the role of a bridge across the regional divides, maintaining ties with both sides in order to depolarize regional politics. Both are close American allies with strong military ties and both have had good relations with Israel in the past. At the same time, both maintain good relations with actors in the so-called "radical" camp and have made major efforts to reach out to Arab public opinion rather than to try to silence or repress it. As relatively new actors on the scene, they have been palpably impatient with a moribund old

17 order and unconcerned with finding a way to fit in with the entrenched, calcified lines of conflict in the region.

The failure of the Obama administration thus far is not that it has been insufficiently aggressive, a "fierce and certain ally [which] gives moderates strength and radicals pause." It is that it has not changed enough. It has too often remained locked in the Bush administration's framework of moderates and radicals, and has failed to truly take advantage of the opportunities offered by these energetic new "bridge" actors such as Turkey and Qatar. The growing Arab disenchantment with Obama is rooted in the widespread belief that American policies have not changed very much from the Bush years despite the improved rhetoric.

When Obama came to office promising a new beginning and a move away from the polarizing rhetoric of his predecessor, Turkey and Qatar offered an intriguing model for engagement across both sides of the divide. They could have been valuable interlocutors 18 for the United States in pursuing a grand bargain with Iran based on common interests across the region or for exploring peace opportunities between Israel and Syria (as the Turks had already been trying to accomplish, with some success). The U.S. might have sought their help in brokering an intra-Palestinian reconciliation and reunifying the West Bank and Gaza.

But for the most part, the Obama administration chose to fall back on the conventional policies of the past: Palestinian reconciliation remained in the hands of an enfeebled and partisan Egypt, the grand bargain with Iran faded from an agenda dominated by the nuclear question and sanctions, and the Turks are now seen as more of a problem than an asset. Breaking through some of these intractable problems will require not going back to the failed approach of the Bush administration, but rather rediscovering the genuine conceptual changes which Obama originally brought to the table.

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18 A safe haven for Iraqi Christians in Damascus by Wamith Al-Kassab (Iraq) MidEast Youth (a website concentrates on Middle East and North Africa) 19 June 2010,

The history of Christianity in Iraq dates back to the first century BC. But after the U.S. invasion in 2003, many Christians fled their homeland and have found refuge in Syria.

Christianity in Iraq is threatened with extinction. Before the war broke out in 2003, lived about 880,000 Chaldeans in Iraq and more than half a million other Christians in relatively stable conditions. As doctors or engineers, they were highly regarded in society, provided they expressed no criticism of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, their number will have halved.

Support and assistance in Damascus 19 But has helped just one man, the thousands of Iraqi refugees, Christians now makes courage to stay: Father Farid Botros of the Chaldean Church in Damascus in a German documentary . would find from Iraq fleeing Christians in Syria the necessary help, the minister said in his parish house in the neighborhood of Bab Touma: “More than 2,000 families in Damascus for help from us. They come mainly from the edge of the city neighborhoods Jaramana, Saida Zeinab and Maskin Berzah. “ “We have organized for Iraqi refugees in Syria, a lot of utilities. 2009 twenty doctors have worked for us,” he explains. “Here in Bab Touma, there is a neighborhood center and a device for people who have come from Iraq, providing humanitarian and medical assistance. We are also handicapped children to the side St. Thomas brought in the first century AD, Christianity in Iraq. As an offshoot of the Catholic church was built near the religious community of Chaldeans in the first region of Mesopotamia between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, where Iraq is today. Whatever it was, after a 1551 dispute over the succession in office of the patriarch with the Catholic Church had fallen out with him. The fragile balance of social and community groups in Iraq in early 2006 became permanently out of joint, after which the land

19 in 2006 and 2007 was rocked by a series of attacks which brought it to the brink of civil war. Although the Iraqi government promised to protect the Christian minority in the country, an important number of Chaldean church leaders in Iraq were kidnapped and murdered. Mosul, once a city with a thriving Christian population, now sinking into violence and chaos.

On 29 February 2008 was abducted Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, after he had read the Mass in Mosul. Two weeks later, on 13 March, was dead in a shallow grave on the outskirts found his. In June of last year were his Father Ragheed and three subdeacons secretary already been murdered: attacks that are clearly directed against the Christian community. The destruction of ethnic diversity is perhaps the worst impact of the Iraq war has had on the.1987, when the last official survey, 1.4 million Christians lived in the country. A report by the U.S. State Department religious freedom, according to worldwide, there were only 2008 550000- 800000 Christians there. Since then the number has probably 20 fallen further.

After the attacks had many Muslim leaders in Iraq expressed its solidarity with the Christian community to express and promised to help, more Christians who are looking for our help center in Syria , but there were also Muslims already there. They all need support n Damascus, the Chaldean Church has for about five hundred children and youth religious education at Sunday from the Iraqi refugees who come to hundreds of thousands across the border many want to continue to a Western country to settle and the Middle East back on the return – the wish for the most people flee from Iraq – not just the Christians. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Damascus, reported last year, only 1179 people would have in October 2008 initiated, voluntary returnees reported for the program. Evidently the people of Iraq not so sure that there did they return. According to the United Nations in Damascus, Syria, the percentage of Christians among the refugees in particularly high.

The political conflicts will pose to the security and stability of Iraq probably remain a major challenge.

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 Haaretz: 'Report: Germany rejects Israeli call to halt probe into Mossad role in Dubai killing'..

 Haaretz: 'Israel bars German Development Aid minister from Gaza'..

 Daily Telegraph: 'now we must do our duty by servicemen and women (in Afghanistan)' [an article by the British Prime Minister David Cameron]..

 Jerusalem Post: 'Israeli UN ambassador resigns'..

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