Word: gulf
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...Bush's efforts to rally an Arab coalition to isolate Iran in the Gulf seemed to fall flat. Only days after he visited Kuwait, liberated in 1991 by a coalition led by the President's father, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Mohammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah was standing beside Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Tehran, declaring: "My country knows who is our friend and who is our enemy, and Iran is our friend...
...trust the Iraqi government, believing that the Shi'ites who run it are controlled by Iran. They trust the Americans instead. "When you realize they think we are the government then we need to take the initiative. They think if we can launch a missile from the Persian Gulf and destroy Saddam's palaces we can do anything." Like throw a switch and provide 24-hour electricity across the Iraqi capital. They look at us, says Crider, and think, "You're are the ones with the guns, with the money. To this day they believe we can do anything...
...inconvenient for the President to discover that both were appointed by the Emir rather than elected. Worse, one was hounded out of parliament in the face of impeachment hearings last spring, and the other is facing them now. Thanks to $100 oil, it seems, democratizing in the Gulf is like decorating here: more crass than class...
...meal was delicious, thank you, but surprisingly none of the dishes was as good as the goat's brains from the buffet laid out by the palace of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum of Dubai on Monday). Back to the interesting part: amid all the excess, the Gulf is becoming a test case for the theory that oil wealth is a curse rather than a blessing when it comes to democratic development...
...theory is holding up in the Gulf - almost. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia and Iran are not liberalizing, while Bahrain is. The outlier is Dubai. It is diversifying economically as its oil runs out, but has taken almost no steps to democratize. When Bush brought up the "Freedom Agenda" in private talks with Sheikh Mohammad, says National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley...