Online NewsHour: Analysis | Iraqi Government Losing Stability | August 15, 2007 | PBS: "MARGARET WARNER: It's been a week of spectacular violence in Iraq: suicide bombings in the north taking a toll of hundreds; the kidnapping of a government minister; and random attacks across the country. It's also been a week of further political stalemate in Baghdad, seemingly fruitless meetings among opposing factions and, amidst boycotts and defections, growing questions about whether the government of Prime Minister Maliki can even survive. We get four assessments of the situation now from Rend al-Rahim, a former Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., she's now executive director of the Iraq Foundation, which promotes democracy there, and she was in Iraq earlier this summer. Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she served in the Carter and Clinton administrations. Trudy Rubin, foreign affairs columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, she travels frequently to Iraq. And Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan."
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
Comments