Obama off to the Middle East

With the tone between Washington and Jerusalem changing quite markedly in the last days - with respect to the so-called settlements [some being towns with upwards of 25,000 people] which the Israelis keep on establishing or expanding despite assurances not to and the Oslo agreement - Obama is about to head off to the Middle East. Cairo and Saudi Arabia are the slated stops. It is said that a major speech will be delivered in Egypt - the second-highest recipient of aid after Israel, even if it is a country far from being any sort of democracy!

The Washington Post asked activists, journalists and policy experts what the president should say in his address in Cairo. Below are contributions from Ayman Nour, David Makovsky, Danielle Pletka, Steven A. Cook, Daoud Kuttab, Tamara Cofman Wittes, Martin Indyk, David Pollock and Curtis Cannon, and Aaron David Miller.

Read what the experts say Obama should say here.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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