Word: climbdown
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...Given the stakes in the diplomatic spat, Ayalon's defiance potentially carried a high cost. But it took a behind-the-scenes intervention of the proverbial grownup in the Israeli establishment - President Shimon Peres, who served for decades as Israel's key diplomat - to orchestrate a climbdown. Peres called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman and urged them to defuse the crisis. But domestic politics was in play: not only was Ayalon's initial action calculated to burnish the nationalist appeal of his and Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, but Netanyahu's need to maintain that party...
...Still, the mounting furor over the Kerry-Lugar Act may produce an outcome quite different from what the legislation intends. In March, after bitterly resisting calls to reinstate the Chief Justice sacked by Musharraf, Zardari was forced into a humiliating climbdown in the face of an array of opponents as formidable as those challenging him over the U.S. aid package. Pakistan is in no position to reject the vast sums of money on offer. But while the combination of opposition from the military, political opponents and the broader public may not topple him, it could further hobble a President that...
...demand that Israel halt all construction on land conquered in 1967. Instead, Netanyahu offered a partial and time-limited freeze and appeared to force the President of the United States to back down. For Abbas, the handshake with Netanyahu orchestrated by Obama was viewed as a humiliating climbdown from his refusal to talk to the Israelis until they implemented that settlement freeze. (Read about the photo-op peace process...
...finding ladders tall enough to provide leaders who've climbed trees too tall for them with a face-saving manner of climbing down," says Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at the British think tank Chatham House and program director of international relations at Regents College in London. "That climbdown requires that small, careful steps be taken at a consistent pace. Today we're talking about settlement freezes, which is nothing compared to questions like Jerusalem, border placement or the fate of refugees. But you have to start somewhere." (Read "The Six Issues That Divide Bibi from Barack...
...likely to be that simple. Sources in China tell TIME that while Beijing recognizes it overreached by originally alleging the theft of state secrets, this week's climbdown does not mean the government is looking for a face-saving way out of the situation. Far from it, in fact. The case - just as many outsiders had assumed - is rooted in what one Chinese steel-industry official called the "sense of outrage at the highest levels in Beijing" that Rio walked away in June from a $19.5 billion tie-up it had struck late last year with Chinalco, the Chinese state...