I found that this piece in the Economist captures well the fragility of Lebanon’s current political order. I recommend reading it. Here’s a section I found compelling: Such conundrums point up the peculiar make-up and intractability of the opposing forces.
President Bush probably chuckled when Colin Powell left the room after advising the President about the “Pottery Barn Rule” — “you break it, you own it.” (yes, I know Pottery Barn doesn’t make you pay. . .but you get the point. . .
Ari Fleischer was told “days earlier” than anyone previously knew by Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby that Valerie Plame was not only Joe Wilson’s wife but that she worked in the CIA’s counter-proliferation division. Fleisher also indicated that Libby said this info was on “the QT.
Former Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) has settled in at his new fellowship perch at Brown University’s Watson Institute — and is speaking out in the press about America’s foreign policy mess nearly as much as former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.
Not entirely. . .but pretty close. According to a piece that has just appeared in the International Herald Tribune: Former U.S. envoy to the United Nations John Bolton said in an interview published in France that the United States has “no strategic interest” in a united Iraq. . .
Last August, Dan Froomkin published this interesting visual of the real West Wing floor plan — and a roster of who sits most closely to the President of the United States on a daily basis.
Ahmed Chalabi has surfaced after a long period of silence in Iraq. He appeared at a news conference to announce that some of those “purged” from government positions have been allowed back into Iraqi government staff jobs. This is a couple of years too late in my view — but it’s a start.
Congratulations to Charles Ferguson and Alex Gibney — whose extraordinary important new film, No End in Sight was among those recognized with a prize at the closing festivities of the Sundance Film Festival.
A close friend of mine, Nobuo Tanaka, is the Executive Director-elect of the International Energy Agency. I didn’t know much about the agency until I flipped through its website and found quite a number of useful resources on global energy use and climate change related data.
The Gulf States with Saudi Arabia in the lead are scrambling to figure out what to do if American power in the Middle East continues to dissipate. One of the tools in their tool kit is to quietly over-supply crude oil into the global market and knock prices down.