Word: arab
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...Obama had prioritized resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But his demands - of a complete settlement freeze by Israel and reciprocal gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel by Arab governments - has been rejected on both sides. And while no recent Administration has had much success in this realm, veterans of the peace process concur that the President's initial approach was flawed. It may have even done more harm than good, they argue, by raising expectations that could not be met, leaving both sides mistrustful of Washington's intentions and creating a situation where either Netanyahu or Abbas would be painted...
...Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator now at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center, agrees that the Administration's initial demands of Israel and the Arab states were misguided, created unrealistic expectations, and "have allowed both the Israelis and the Palestinians to say no to the United States without suffering any consequences." Still, he says, first-year errors in foreign policy are common in new U.S. Administrations and the Obama team will have time to rectify matters...
...vote had been delayed for weeks over the apparently parochial issue of electoral lists for the contested northern city of Kirkuk. Oil-rich Kirkuk, claimed by Iraq's Kurds as an integral part of their autonomous semistate but administered by the Arab-dominated government in Baghdad, has long been a potential flash point in the uneasy relationship between the Kurdish autonomous region and Baghdad. Sunday's compromise, which allows recent Kurdish returnees (much of the city's Kurdish population had been expelled by Saddam Hussein, precisely to cement Arab control there) to vote in Kirkuk but gives parliament the authority...
...Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, observers have viewed Kirkuk, which is coveted by Kurds, Turkomans and Arabs, as a potential trip wire for civil war. The fact that it has remained largely stable owes much to the cosmopolitan character of the city's native population, and the city's heroic local police force led by three generals - a Kurd, an Arab and a Turkoman. The relative calm in Kirkuk may also be a vindication of the Baghdad government's foot-dragging over the question of whether to turn Kirkuk over to Kurdish control. (See pictures of Iraq...
...strong TTP, which was led by Baitullah Mehsud until he was killed by a U.S. drone in August, is largely made up of members of his Mehsud tribe, though an increasing number of militants from the Pakistani heartland of Punjab, along with an estimated 1,500 Uzbek and Arab fighters, have joined the force. Since Mehsud's deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud, assumed leadership in August, there has been an escalation of violence throughout the country that has seen dozens of suicide-bomb attacks, lethal raids on security installations - including the army headquarters - and more than 200 deaths...