Crises in the Middle East

On June 27, 2006 Israel sent troops, tanks and aircraft into the Gaza Strip.  This invasion has been described to the world as a “rescue operation” to free one soldier who had been taken prisoner by Palestinian resistance forces. Almost certainly Corporal Gilad Shalit’s capture on June 25th  served as a pretext for an operation…

A According to Israeli Ha’aretz correspondent Zeév Schiff [‘What to do with Hamas’, Ha’aretz 7 April 2006] Israeli strategists provided four options on how to confront the Hamas- led Palestinian Authority (PA), none of which included direct negotiations with Hamas leaders. While the first two options (of which there is the slightest chance Israel will…

In the mid-1980s an obligatorily air-headed action film entitled Delta Force popped up on American cinema screens. The gaudy Golan-Globus production dangled before its audiences a wish-fulfillment fantasy as to how the bungled 1979 effort to rescue hostages in Iran somehow might have succeeded. (The braggart advertisement could have been scrawled by Dubya: “They don’t…

The Bush administration lacked a clear Iran policy when it took office in January 2000. The containment policy it inherited from the Clinton administration was under review when the tragedy of September 11 occurred. The US then declared Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil” and pursued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, as…