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	<title>SwamplandCategory: Mideast &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: Mideast &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<title>What Awaits John Brennan at the CIA</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/09/what-awaits-john-brennan-at-the-cia/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/09/what-awaits-john-brennan-at-the-cia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 2013 13:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Robert B. Baer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=84454</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The CIA should do well by John Brennan, the President&#8217;s trusted counterterrorism adviser who&#8217;s just been tapped as director. The mere fact that the President has named him to that position sent a message to the rank and file that the CIA counts, that it deserves to be led by an Administration insider. But it may take time for the agency to realize what it&#8217;s gotten — especially in the clandestine service, which is wary of Brennan&#8217;s return. Keep in mind that many Presidents have kept their CIA directors as far away from the Oval Office as possible. CIA failures have a way of going disastrously public, and the way the White House saw it, the less such failures were associated with the President, the better. The last CIA director with a close personal relationship with his President was Reagan&#8217;s CIA director Bill Casey. In ways that may never be known, Casey played an important role in shaping Reagan&#8217;s foreign policy. Most of the CIA directors who followed him were parts of larger teams. (MORE: If You Thought Benghazi Was Bad, Watch Syria) I&#8217;ll never forget when Casey once called me up to his office to tell me that the President wanted something done. I not only believed him, I also made sure that I did everything I could do to get it done. On the other hand, when I was called up to see Jim Woolsey, Bill Clinton’s CIA director, and was told Woolsey might have to wait months to see the President, my enthusiasm flagged accordingly. What Brennan also has going for him is that having spent 25 years at Langley, he knows the CIA like his own living room. He knows who&#8217;s good and who isn&#8217;t. He knows where the CIA is weak, and where it&#8217;s strong. Although he spent nearly all of his career as an analyst, Brennan will recognize a flimflam operation when he sees one. The chances are good that there won&#8217;t be another Benghazi, where a CIA facility was left in a relatively defenseless<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=84454&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/159075731.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Obama Nominates Hagel For Defense Secretary, Brennan For CIA Chief</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">More...</media:title>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Long Game on Middle East Peace</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/26/obamas-long-game-on-middle-east-peace/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/26/obamas-long-game-on-middle-east-peace/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:45:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=82761</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With their powers of persuasion fading in Congress, second-term U.S. Presidents often look abroad to cement their legacies. Brokering peace in the Middle East is the holy grail of such global goals. Ronald Reagan tried it. So did Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. George W. Bush might have tried it if the U.S. economy hadn’t been collapsing during his final years in office. (MORE: What Should the Middle East Expect from Obama’s Second Term?) President Obama is already planning his legacy-making bid, hoping to succeed where his predecessors failed. Negotiating peace is not going to be a quick process. Obama took the first step last week when he dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Gaza, seeking to build goodwill with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians. But what will be a long game of diplomatic chess has only just begun. When he took office in 2009, Obama named ex-Senator George Mitchell to be his special envoy to the Middle East. But that investment proved fruitless: Mitchell soon ran into a series of obstacles. Before Obama even took office, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza. A year later, Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel was overshadowed by the construction of new settlements, an issue that evolved into a crisis later in 2010. In early 2011, Mitchell stepped down in frustration, saying negotiations had “hit a brick wall.” A few months later, Obama&#8217;s relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was strained by a contentious visit by the Israeli leader to Washington. And throughout 2012, Netanyahu seemed to favor Obama’s rival, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. By the time Obama was re-elected in November, the two leaders had never seemed further apart. As violence escalated in Gaza last week, Obama could have exacted some political revenge on Netanyahu, who is up for re-election Jan. 22. But Obama didn’t cozy up to Netanyahu’s rivals, as Netanyahu did to Romney during the U.S. election, briefing the challenger as well as the incumbent. Obama backed without question Israel’s right to defend itself and sent<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=82761&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/obama.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Barack Obama</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Diplomatic Efforts Yield Prospect of Tenuous Cease-Fire in Gaza</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/diplomatic-efforts-yield-prospect-of-tenuous-ceasefire-in-gaza/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/diplomatic-efforts-yield-prospect-of-tenuous-ceasefire-in-gaza/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:51:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=82704</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to arrive late on Tuesday in Jerusalem, Hamas announced that a tentative cease-fire agreement with Israel had nearly been reached in the Gaza Strip. But Clinton’s trip isn’t for nothing. Tensions are still running high throughout the region, and the potential for hostilities to reignite in the coming weeks remains. A “calming down” period was expected to be formally announced on Tuesday night at 2100 GMT in Cairo, where negotiators on all sides had been meeting to hammer out a deal. But that was postponed amid reports that Israel had yet to sign off on a deal to end the violence that began seven days ago. Hostilities began when Israel assassinated Hamas’ top military commander in the Gaza Strip. Israel then launched an aerial-bombing campaign targeting Hamas sites where bombs were suspected of being housed or made. Operation Pillar of Defense, as Israel called it, came in response to months of Hamas bombing in southern Israel. While most of those bombs — 800 in the month leading up to last week&#8217;s escalation — were deflected by Israel’s U.S.-subsidized Iron Dome system, which shoots down incoming rockets, more than a million residents in southern Israel have been living under constant threat. Three Israelis and more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the past week. (PHOTOS: A New Gaza War: Israel and Palestinian Militants Trade Fire) The cease-fire is &#8220;very fragile,&#8221; says an Arab diplomatic source, &#8220;one bomb hits Tel Aviv, and it&#8217;s over.&#8221; To some extent, the source said, Israel was testing the Arab response in a changed political landscape. The Arab Spring shuffled Hamas’ allegiances in the region, from Shi‘ite Iran and Syria to Sunni Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood currently in power in Egypt decades ago spawned Hamas, which is Sunni, and Hamas recently moved its headquarters from Damascus to Cairo. Israel wanted to see what the reaction would be to action in Gaza, the diplomat said. Israel has parliamentary elections coming up on Jan. 22. Once those are over, Prime<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=82704&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sl-gaza-ceasefire-1120.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sl-gaza-ceasefire-1120.jpg?w=200" />
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			<media:title type="html">image: A Palestinian child climbs over the remains of a house reportedly destroyed by an overnight Israeli air strike on the village of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 18, 2012.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>How Egypt&#8217;s Sinai Peninsula Figures in the Gaza Turmoil</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/15/how-egypts-sinai-peninsula-figures-in-the-gaza-turmoil/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/15/how-egypts-sinai-peninsula-figures-in-the-gaza-turmoil/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:17:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=82508</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The word Sinai was never uttered through three presidential debates and almost never on the campaign trail. But ask some foreign policy experts where they fear the next flashpoint will be in the Middle East and it isn’t Iran or, even, Syria. It’s the Sinai. They point to the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip, which borders on the Sinai, as evidence of just how combustible the region in. The Sinai Peninsula, which is ostensibly ruled by Egypt, is a backwater of mostly desert and rocks. It is famous for three things: the Suez Canal, Mount Sinai where Moses received the 10 commandments; and the luxury resorts of Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. But, with post-revolutionary Egypt in constant tumult, tourist and pilgrimage traffic is down. And as the Egyptian military focused on internal politics, the Sinai has become overrun by smugglers – who deal in everything from drugs to guns to humans &#8212; and worse, al-Qaeda affiliated extremists. “After the revolution, disaffected Bedouin tribes in the Sinai cooperated with released jihadist prisoners from [former president] Hosni Mubarak’s jails to begin attacks on security installations and the Egypt-Israel gas pipeline,” says Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brooking Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “The jihadists in the Sinai have pledged their allegiance to [al Qaeda leader Ayman al] Zawahiri, and he has repeatedly endorsed their attacks on Israeli targets. Libyan weapons have also found their way into the Sinai.&#8221; Along a 14.5 kilometer stretch of Sinai’s eastern shoulder, is the border with the Gaza Strip. It is through some 400 tunnels under this border that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organization that rules the strip, smuggles the rockets in its arsenal. Other Palestinian radicals in Gaza like Islamic Jihad have done so as well. That firepower is now being sent into Israel after the Jewish state assassinated Hamas&#8217; military chief Ahmed al-Jabari on Wednesday and launched an air-and-drone assault that has killed about a score of people in the coastal enclave. Some 200 rockets have been<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=82508&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Netanyahu at the U.N.: Bibi Makes Nice with Obama</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/27/netanyahu-at-the-u-n-bibi-makes-nice-with-obama/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/27/netanyahu-at-the-u-n-bibi-makes-nice-with-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:38:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=79045</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Benjamin Natanyahu offered an unlikely endorsement of President Barack Obama’s strategy on Iran in a speech on Thursday before the U.N. General Assembly. “Two days ago President Obama reiterated that the threat of a nuclear Iran cannot be contained,” Netanyahu said. “We thank and support President Obama for his position. I believe Democrats and Republicans alike share his position, and it is shared by leaders around the world … Israel is in discussions with the United States on this issue, and I am confident that we can chart a path forward together.” In both tone and words, it was a departure from recent statements by the Prime Minister, who is said to have an icy relationship with Obama. At a Sept. 11 press conference, Netanyahu angrily declared: “The world tells Israel, &#8216;Wait, there&#8217;s still time.’ And I say, &#8216;Wait for what? Wait until when?&#8217; Those in the international community who refuse to put redlines before Iran don&#8217;t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.&#8221; (MORE: Exit Ahmadinejad: Iranian President Leaves World Stage with a Whimper) That came after Netanyahu reportedly dressed down U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro over America’s Iran policy in front of visiting members of Congress — and then leaked the episode days before the Democratic National Convention. And in the lead-up to the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu’s administration leaked word that Obama had declined to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister in New York — an allegation the Obama Administration denied, saying the two men weren’t even scheduled to be in the city at the same time. Obama’s rival, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, an old friend of Netanyahu from their days working at a consulting firm in Boston, latched on to each of these episodes to pound Obama for not being tougher on Iran. “Every American is less secure today because [Obama] has failed to slow Iran&#8217;s nuclear threat,” Romney said in his Tampa speech accepting the GOP nomination. &#8220;President Obama has thrown allies like Israel under the bus.” Israeli officials have<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=79045&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/netanyahu_0927.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/netanyahu_0927.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/netanyahu_0927.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benjamin Netanyahu</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/557ff2649ffce53285c86e4b694cff6d?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>How Libya Makes Obama Vulnerable — and the GOP Knows It</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/21/how-libya-makes-obama-vulnerable-and-the-gop-knows-it/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/21/how-libya-makes-obama-vulnerable-and-the-gop-knows-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:25:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ambassador]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christopher stevens]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democrats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[george w. bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[libya]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muammar gaddafi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary of State]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=78839</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rally-around-the-flag time is over. For the most part, Republicans — with the exception of Mitt Romney — had held their fire in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which claimed the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. But as questions emerge about how the Libya attack, in particular, went down, Republicans are starting to criticize the Obama Administration for not anticipating the violence and not doing enough to secure Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Republicans almost universally reacted with skepticism and scorn after a briefing on Thursday by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. “They&#8217;re trying to cover their behinds,” Representative Bill Flores, a Texas Republican, told The Hill upon leaving the House briefing. Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, echoed the sentiment: “That is the most useless, worthless briefing I have attended in a long time.” (MORE: In Syria, Libya-Style Intervention Remains Unlikely) In the days following the attacks, the White House at first said it believed the attack in Benghazi in eastern Libya that claimed Stevens’ life was spontaneous, born of protests over an inflammatory California-made video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. “We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sept. 16. The Administration has since changed course and now admits the attack may have been preplanned. Clinton told Senators on Thursday that she believed it was “self-evident” that it was a terrorist attack. “It seems like it was obvious [there was] some element of preplanning, but how far in advance, that’s hard to say,” Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters. Though, all three briefers were careful to underline that there had been no chatter or warning of an attack, despite six recent al-Qaeda-linked incidents — not aimed at<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=78839&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Will the Arab Spring Rain on Obama&#8217;s Re-election?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/13/will-the-arab-spring-rain-on-obamas-re-election/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/13/will-the-arab-spring-rain-on-obamas-re-election/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:57:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=78367</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The deaths of four Americans in Libya raise hard questions about whether security was adequate. Mitt Romney can hardly argue that we were better off with Gaddafi in power, and odds are good that Obama will exact some retributive "justice" for the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues. But while presidential campaign debate tends to be simplistic and crude, the complex implications of the Arab Spring, and its darkening, defy the familiar frame. <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=78367&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/13/will-the-arab-spring-rain-on-obamas-re-election/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/600_hilllaryandobama_0914.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">President Obama Speaks On The Death Of U.S. Ambassador In Libya Christopher Stevens</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/25edc643b57a776abbc75835c699af51?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">crowley100</media:title>
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		<title>Enter Bibi</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/12/enter-bibi/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/12/enter-bibi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:47:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=78280</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It may be, as Jeff Goldberg asserts, that Bibi Netanyahu is just frustrated over President Obama&#8217;s refusal to approve an Israeli attack on Iran. Or it may be something else: an unprecedented attempt by a putative American ally to influence a U.S. presidential campaign. Either way, Netanyahu&#8217;s recent behavior is outrageous. He is trying push us into a war that is not in our national interest, a war that would only further destabilize a region that is already teetering near chaos. He is trying to get us to damage our relations with the rest of the world&#8211;especially the Russians and Chinese, whom we spent great diplomatic effort luring into the Iranian economic sanctions&#8211;so that he can pursue a strategy that even the Israeli military and intelligence communities find questionable. President Obama will not yield to this pressure, nor should he&#8211;and every American should know the implications of what Netanyahu and his American neoconservative allies, including Mitt Romney, are proposing. Iran is not Afghanistan or Libya. It is not a bunch of tents in the desert. It is also not Iraq or Pakistan, clumsy collections of tribes and ethnicities cobbled together by Europeans a century ago. It is an actual place, a real country with real borders. It has the best-educated population in the region, outside of Israel; and that population is extremely proud of the country&#8217;s heritage while also being generally pro-American (especially American culture, which is received on the satellite dishes that mushroom every rooftop). It is a complicated culture, ironic and poetic and deeply paranoid, especially about the machinations of former colonial powers. It represents, I believe, the greatest mismatch between a people and a government of any country in the world. The Iranian government is dreadful and brutal, but not crazy. The Supreme Leader is not Saddam Hussein. The Iranians have much to lose if they ever chose to attack Israel or&#8211;anyplace, for that matter. They took 1 million casualties in Ayatullah Khomeini&#8217;s foolish war with Iraq in the 1980s; 100,000 were chemical victims of Saddam&#8217;s poison<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=78280&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/12/enter-bibi/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/2012-09-02t100552z_45948465.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Israel&#039;s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Neoconned</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/05/neoconned/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/05/neoconned/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 May 2012 14:12:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=70502</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The illustrious patriots over at the Commentary blog have, predictably, taken me to task for defending Peter Beinart&#8217;s fine book about the crisis in Israel. They have done so in a predictably specious way. So I&#8217;d like to make my position, and theirs, perfectly clear: the argument against West Bank settlements is not merely a demographic one&#8211;that non-voting Arabs will overwhelm Israel&#8217;s democracy over time. Indeed, that&#8217;s not as important as several other arguments: 1. The settlements are illegal. They are a unilateral incursion on Palestinian lands. Yes, world opinion isn&#8217;t exactly a fair yardstick when gauging Israel&#8217;s actions&#8211;the world was opposed to Israel&#8217;s justified military reaction to the rockets hammering the homeland from Gaza in 2008&#8211;but that doesn&#8217;t mean the world is always wrong. In this case, Israel&#8217;s sad embrace of illegality is an international embarrassment, and makes a mockery of the Jewish traditions of reasoned justice and fairness. It drives away countries that might otherwise  side with Israel against Islamic extremism. 2. The settlements are immoral. Drive from Ramallah north to Nablus on the West Bank through the gorgeous Judean hills&#8211;there are Israeli settlements on practically every hilltop. These represent a daily reminder of Israeli pilferage, a thumb in the eye&#8211;and in the case of Ariel, a massive settlement deep in Palestinian territory, a fist in the eye&#8211;of every Palestinian. For most Palestinians, they are the moral equivalent of a permanent terrorist attack, a violent appropriation of the land. The sordid treatment of Palestinians by Israelis&#8211;randomly by settlers, and officially at checkpoints (which, to be sure, are far less plentiful now)&#8211;are a constant, brutal provocation. These settlements represent a deep moral insensitivity on the part of Israel to the basic rights of those who live on these lands. 3. The settlements have brutalized Israel. Beinart&#8211;who is more religious than I am, and has stronger family ties to Israel&#8211;laments this brutalization in quite moving fashion in the book. I disagree with some of the more extreme aspects of Peter&#8217;s position. I&#8217;m opposed to any boycott of Israeli products, even those<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=70502&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/05/neoconned/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>And, er, What About the Settlements?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/03/and-er-what-about-the-settlements/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/03/and-er-what-about-the-settlements/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 May 2012 20:40:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=70421</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The neoconservative assault on Peter Beinart&#8217;s fine book, The Crisis of Zionism, continues. It has taken many forms&#8211;ad hominem attacks usually and now, mocking his sales figures. Indeed, it has taken many forms but one: there still  is no coherent response to Beinart&#8217;s argument that the West Bank settlement policy is a long-term demographic threat to Israel&#8217;s security. The beating Beinart has taken hasn&#8217;t been pretty, but it has been revelatory: neoconservatism has strayed a long way from its intellectual roots toward witless schoolyard bullying. Those of us who truly love Israel would hope for a less coy, more intelligent and, well, rational argument from Zion&#8217;s alleged defenders.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=70421&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Israel&#8217;s Rule of Law</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/25/israels-rule-of-law/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/25/israels-rule-of-law/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:11:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=68155</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel&#8217;s Supreme Court has ruled against the Netanyahu government and order an unsanctioned Israeli settler outpost on the West Bank to be shut down by August. Netanyahu had wanted the outpost to remain open for business in perpetuity&#8211;or close to perpetuity, 2015, by which time the government would have argued the permanence of the settlement. This is an important decision&#8211;and further evidence that Israel&#8217;s Supreme Court is one of the world&#8217;s great bastions of civilized legal contemplation. In recent weeks, the debate over whether to boycott Israel because of its illegal settlements on the West Bank  has become more intense. Peter Beinart has proposed a limited boycott, focusing on products made or crops raised by Israeli settlers on Palestinian lands. I agree with Beinart about the illegality of the settlements, and the vast damage they are doing to Israel&#8217;s future stability, but limited boycotts are messy things&#8211;especially when they are likely to slop over into, and reinforce calls for, a more general boycott of Israeli goods. Decisions like the one made today by the Supreme Court should remind us that, despite the recalcitrance of the Likud coalition, Israel remains one of the world&#8217;s most supple democracies and its Supreme Court a precious monument to the rule of law.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=68155&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/82d9b09d6bf4a8d7cc755c73ad7a3ae5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Netanyahu Signals Determination on Iran, But War Will Have to Wait</title>
		<link>http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/03/06/netanyahu-signals-determination-on-iran-but-war-will-have-to-wait/</link>
		<comments>http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/03/06/netanyahu-signals-determination-on-iran-but-war-will-have-to-wait/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:31:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tony Karon</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=67226</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Had he been speaking Hebrew in a dramatic TV broadcast back home, parts of Benjamin Netanyahu’s fire-and-brimstone speech Tuesday night might have been mistaken for the words of an Israeli prime minister about to launch a fateful war. He painted Iran’s nuclear program as an apocalyptic extermination threat redolent of the Nazi Holocaust, stressed Israel’s power and responsibility to prevent a repeat of the greatest trauma in Jewish history, and vowed that “As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never let my people live under the shadow of annihilation”.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=67226&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/03/06/netanyahu-signals-determination-on-iran-but-war-will-have-to-wait/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/44310a1af940f994952d1e4db73096cd?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
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		<title>Four Ways the U.S. Could End Up at War with Iran Before the Election*</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/09/four-ways-the-u-s-could-end-up-at-war-with-iran-before-the-election/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/09/four-ways-the-u-s-could-end-up-at-war-with-iran-before-the-election/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=65599</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Most political analysts in Washington believe that war with Iran is unlikely, especially before the November U.S. elections. Politically it would be hard for President Obama to engage in another Middle Eastern war given the war weariness of the U.S. electorate, let alone the question of being able to afford it at a time when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget. There also seems little appetite from the international community to wage war with Iran, especially since Tehran is still allowing United Nations inspectors into their nuclear sites and, for the first time in recent history, sanctions seem to be working. That said, despite the political, economic and military reluctance to go to war with Iran, there are four ways the U.S. could still end up embroiled in such a conflict before the elections. And by conflict, no one is envisioning troops on the ground. More likely: a bombing campaign or, worst-comes-to-worst, a naval one in the Strait of Hormuz. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re going to go to war with Iran, but I do think we could get dragged into it,&#8221; says Michael Breen, vice president of the Truman Project. (MORE: Iran Calls New US Sanctions &#8216;Psychological War&#8217;) Iran wants a war.Not a full-blown one, which would happen if they closed  the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down the flow of oil and provoking international condemnation. But, say, one where they throw out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Such a move would be seen as a deliberate provocation&#8211;clear proof that Tehran had decided to head toward weapons grade uranium. If that leads to bombing by the U.S. or Israel or both, the Iranian people would rally around their leaders. &#8220;I think there are hardline elements in Tehran that would welcome a military attack,&#8221; says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. &#8220;It&#8217;s a dangerous and unpredictable gamble, but it&#8217;s the one thing that could potentially repair the country&#8217;s deep internal political fractures and distract from widespread popular<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=65599&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Iran</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/iran/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/sl_iran_0208_blog.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Inside Obama&#8217;s World: The President talks to TIME About the Changing Nature of American Power</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/inside-obamas-world-the-president-talks-to-time-about-the-changing-nature-of-american-power/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/inside-obamas-world-the-president-talks-to-time-about-the-changing-nature-of-american-power/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Fareed Zakaria</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diplomacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Exclusives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Foreign Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Interviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2012]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=63865</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fareed Zakaria: When we talked when you were campaigning for the presidency, I asked you which Administration&#8217;s foreign policy you admired. And you said that you looked at George H.W. Bush&#8217;s diplomacy, and I took that to mean the pragmatism, the sense of limits, good diplomacy, as you looked upon it favorably. Now that you are President, how has your thinking evolved? President Obama: It is true that I&#8217;ve been complimentary of George H.W. Bush&#8217;s foreign policy, and I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively. Now that I&#8217;ve been in office for three years, I think that I&#8217;m always cautious about comparing what we&#8217;ve done to what others have done, just because each period is unique. Each set of challenges is unique. But what I can say is that I made a commitment to change the trajectory of American foreign policy in a way that would end the war in Iraq, refocus on defeating our primary enemy, al-Qaeda, strengthen our alliances and our leadership in multilateral fora and restore American leadership in the world. And I think we have accomplished those principal goals. We still have a lot of work to do, but if you look at the pivot from where we were in 2008 to where we are today, the Iraq war is over, we refocused attention on al-Qaeda, and they are badly wounded. They&#8217;re not eliminated, but the defeat not just of [Osama] bin Laden, but most of the top leadership, the tightening noose around their safe havens, the incapacity for them to finance themselves, they are much less capable than they were back in 2008. Our alliances with NATO, Japan, South Korea, our close military cooperation with countries like Israel have never been stronger. Our participation in multilateral organizations has been extremely effective. In the United Nations, not only do we have a voice, but we have been able to shape an agenda. And in the fastest-growing regions of the world in emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region, just to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=63865&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Interviews</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/miscellany/interviews/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/obama_fareed.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">obama_fareed</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/44310a1af940f994952d1e4db73096cd?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/obama-cover.jpg?w=300" medium="image">
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		<title>Obama on Assad</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/18/obama-on-assad/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/18/obama-on-assad/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:40:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[syria]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=54642</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sorry, but I just don&#8217;t get this. I thought it was a bad idea when Obama said that Qaddafi &#8220;must go.&#8221; (You may have noticed: Qaddafi hasn&#8217;t.) And I don&#8217;t suspect that the Assads&#8211;Syria&#8217;s version of the Corleones&#8211;are going anywhere soon. To &#8220;call&#8221; for Assad to go enables Obama&#8217;s opponents to say, &#8220;Why didn&#8217;t he do that a long time ago?&#8221; It also reinforces the growing sense that the President can&#8217;t get anyone to do what he wants. I appreciate the sentiment. Assad is a disgrace to the human race, as Jimmy Carter used to say. But the President has only opened the door for further diminution.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=54642&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Some Sanity From Israel</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/05/some-sanity-from-israel/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/05/some-sanity-from-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:17:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=49379</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Given the lingering hangover effects of Benjamin Netanyahu&#8217;s arrogant visit upon his American supporters&#8211;bitterness (toward Obama), smugness, delusion&#8211;the recent testimony of just-retired Mossad Chief Meir Dagan has provided a needed corrective. Like most recent Mossad chiefs, Dagan is a realist. He sees the big, long-term picture. And he excoriates both Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on two critical topics: Iran and the Palestinian peace process. In the past, Dagan had called an Israeli military strike on Iran &#8220;a stupid idea&#8221; and he elaborated on that this week: This week Mr. Dagan, speaking at Tel Aviv University, said that attacking Iran “would mean regional war, and in that case you would have given Iran the best possible reason to continue the nuclear program.” He added, “The regional challenge that Israel would face would be impossible.” Mr. Dagan went on to complain that Israel had failed to put forward a peace initiative with the Palestinians and that it had foolishly ignored the Saudi peace initiative promising full diplomatic relations in exchange for a return to the 1967 border lines. He worried that Israel would soon be pushed into a corner. Furthermore, Dagan revealed that other recently-resigned military leaders felt the same way: In recent months, the military chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, and the director of the Shin Bet internal security agency, Yuval Diskin, have also stepped down. Mr. Dagan was quoted in several newspapers as saying that the three of them had served as a counterweight to Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak. “I decided to speak out because when I was in office, Diskin, Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure,” he was quoted as saying. “Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi and Barak,” he added, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname. It seems to me that American neoconservatives&#8211;as well as fellow-traveling Democrats like Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer&#8211;have some explaining to do when they side with Netanyahu, not just against the combined heads of Israel&#8217;s internal and external spy services and the Israeli military, but also<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=49379&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Koch and Israel</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/01/koch-and-israel/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/01/koch-and-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:17:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=49120</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Greg Sargent has an interesting post about Jewish Democratic money sticking with Obama, despite the concerted efforts of Bibi Netanyahu and the Republican party to distort his position on the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations. Obama is not in favor of a simple return to the 1967 borders; he is in favor of new, defensible&#8211;an important code word for Israelis&#8211;border based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed upon land swaps. There is, therefore, no change in U.S. policy. Over the weekend, a member of Netanhyahu&#8217;s staff confirmed this&#8211;Obama&#8217;s position, he says (inaccurately) was &#8220;clarified&#8221; in his AIPAC speech. Ed Koch, the former New York mayor and one of my favorite all-time politicians, seems not to have gotten the message, as Sargent and Ben Smith have reported&#8211;and is threatening not to vote for Obama in 2012 because of this non-controversy. I&#8217;m reminded of one my favorite Koch sayings, &#8220;If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.&#8221; But maybe this time, Ed, you need to see the psychiatrist&#8230;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=49120&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Borderline Personalities</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/27/borderline-personalities/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/27/borderline-personalities/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 May 2011 15:45:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[1967 borders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=48866</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There are continuing ruffles and trifles about whether President Obama said anything at all different about the borders of a Palestinian state. Much of it is either meta-talmudic picky (Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post) or poisonously disingenuous (the ever-bilious Charles Krauthammer). Kessler&#8217;s gripe is that Obama is the first President to use the &#8220;1967 borders with agreed-upon swaps&#8221; formulation. Perhaps. But that has been the de facto position of the US government since Nixon. All it means is that there will be a Palestinian state on the West Bank&#8211;even Netanyahu says he supports this, though an argument can be made that he really doesn&#8217;t&#8211;but that the borders will be redrawn to include the vast majority, somewhere between 80% and 90%, of the (illegal) Israeli settlements in the Jewish state. The Palestinians will receive a few patches of desert, of equal size to the territory yielded, in return. This is not a bad deal for Israel. Again, Obama broke no meaningful new ground here. As for Krauthammer... He&#8217;s a smart cookie and a slippery one. He posits the following utterly untrue proposition:  President Obama&#8230;declared that the Arab-Israeli conflict should indeed be resolved along “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” Nothing new here, said Obama three days later. “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different” from 1967. It means nothing of the sort. “Mutually” means both parties have to agree. And if one side doesn’t? Then, by definition, you’re back to the 1967 lines. No you&#8217;re not. You&#8217;re back to where we are right now. If there is no &#8220;mutually agreed upon&#8221; agreement, then the de facto situation on the ground stands. And Israel&#8211;rightly, I believe&#8211;will never agree to a deal that fundamentally compromises its security. (Just as, sadly, the Palestinians perpetually refuse to agree to a deal that creates a Palestinian state.) There is absolutely zero&#8211;I repeat, zero&#8211;chance that Israel would ever agree to a return to 1967 borders without swaps. Indeed, the de facto situation will<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=48866&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Mitchell Steps Down, Peace Process in Tatters</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/mitchell-steps-down-peace-process-in-tatters/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/mitchell-steps-down-peace-process-in-tatters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2011 20:46:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=48020</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Obama&#8217;s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, is stepping down. His departure comes at an awkward moment. The peace process in free fall. Mitchell&#8217;s Palestinian interlocutor, President Mahmoud Abbas, has just signed a unity deal with Hamas, which has as its declared aim the destruction of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be addressing Congress in 11 days in what is expected to be a play to Republican sympathies aimed at blunting administration calls for concessions. And President Obama himself is supposedly going to try and reboot the near-dead peace process in coming weeks&#8211;apparently without his envoy of the last two years. Mitchell&#8217;s departure also occurs against the backdrop of the Palestinians&#8217; unilateral plan to seek statehood through a vote of the UN General Assembly in September, a move likely further to drive tension between the two sides. It is very difficult not to read Mitchell&#8217;s exit as acceptance by him and the administration that two years&#8217; efforts to bolster the peace process have done little to slow its deterioration. Alternative routes to peace, like the Syria track, are in even greater shambles. Other explanations are no less bleak. Some in Israel see violence this summer or in the wake of September&#8217;s statehood vote as all but inevitable. Perhaps Mitchell wants to get out before relations between the Palestinians and Israelis turn from dysfunctional to bloody.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=48020&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>Hamas and Fatah: The Wedding That Mattered</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/29/hamas-and-fatah-the-wedding-that-mattered/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/29/hamas-and-fatah-the-wedding-that-mattered/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:37:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mideast]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=46757</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The most important marriage of the week was in Palestine, not London. True, the odds of a lasting relationship between the internationally recognized leaders of the Palestinians, Fatah, and the internationally designated terrorist group, Hamas, aren’t great—it’s not clear whether the union will actually be consummated. But even a short fling has the potential to upturn Arab-Israeli affairs, shift U.S. interests in the Middle East and play a role in the 2012 election. First, a Hamas-Fatah union would likely bring to an end the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. gives (pdf) to the Palestinians, and halt the training and equipment that the U.S. currently provides Palestinian police in Jordan. The U.S. has set three conditions for dealing with Hamas: recognition of Israel’s right to exist, renunciation of terrorism and violence, and the recognition of previous agreements like Oslo and the current security arrangements. Fatah might be able to make that money up elsewhere, but it would be a dramatic shift from an alliance with the U.S. to some other, less pro-Israel player. Second, it increases the possibility of violence this summer in the run-up to the likely September recognition of Palestinian statehood by the UN General Assembly. Israel is bracing for a third intifada. Bibi Netanyahu, cornered politically at home and diplomatically abroad, will jump on any opportunity to demonstrate his country is under threat from Hamas. Third, it is bad news for Obama any way you slice it. By increasing the chances of unrest, it increases the chances of gas prices staying high. It represents a major setback for his efforts to broker peace. And it means the near certain departure of the West’s favorite Palestinian, Salaam Fayyad, the competent technocrat who is responsible for much of the economic and political progress in the West Bank in recent years.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=46757&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Mideast</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/mideast/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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