What can, and what will, Obama deliver in the Middle East?

With Obama off to visit Saudi Arabia and then Cairo in the next days, where he is slated to give a major speech - whatever that means! - thestar.com in Toronto has an interesting op-ed piece "Muslims wait for Obama to deliver" which analyses and pulls together a number of major considerations which impact on the visit.

"There was the American overreach under George W. Bush. Now there's Barack Obama's outreach to the Muslim world.

On Wednesday, he will be in Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah. On Thursday, he will be in Egypt to deliver his much-anticipated address to Muslims.

He has already taken four mini-jabs at the subject – in his inaugural address; his Jan. 27 interview with Al-Arabiya TV; his March 19 video address to Iran; and his April 6 speech to the Turkish parliament.

This has drawn mixed reviews:

He wouldn't be addressing the Christian world, or the Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist worlds. Why the exception for Muslims?

By framing terrorism in religious terms, he's treading the same turf as militant Islamists, on the one hand, and Bush, on the other.

He has no choice but to fix the shattered relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world."

The writer has "consulted" 4 experts - whose views can be read 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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