Word: regionality
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...whose testimony may be the most important may not be Petraeus, the anticipated star of the show, but the other guy, Crocker, a much admired diplomat who has spent his entire career in the region. If Petraeus has seen some victories, Crocker has known nothing but defeat in his dealings with the failed government of Nouri al-Maliki-dealings that mostly involve trying to get the Shi'ites to treat the Sunnis fairly and stop fighting among themselves. As a result, Crocker may have a better handle on the most important questions facing the U.S. effort in Iraq...
...Crocker is the antithesis of the ideologues who provided the intellectual rationale for the Iraq war. He is a classic example of what the neoconservatives scornfully call an Arabist. He is fluent in Arabic and Farsi and has a real affinity for the cultures of the region. He was in the Beirut embassy when it was bombed by Hizballah in 1983, and he dug through the rubble for his lost colleagues. His proudest moment was raising the flag in post-Taliban Kabul, reopening the U.S. embassy. He was a co-author of a secret 2002 State Department assessment called...
...much for Parisians bundled up against the early September rain and low temperatures, they may take some consolation in knowing the summer was just as bad in other parts of France. Normandy and Brittany experienced wet, cold weather, while the Atlantic coast from the Bordeaux region down to the Spanish border was doused by record-setting volumes of rain. The impact of that went beyond slumping tanning lotion sales. Between cold demis of beer that never got ordered to ice cream that stayed unscooped; from crops that didn't ripen enough to cultivate into summer fruits like tomatoes and watermelon...
...Iraq visits by members of Congress, in which an almost universally negative outlook was replaced by a more optimistic view, even among some Democrats. Still, polls show that 70% of Americans disapprove of the President's handling of the war; aides hope that his personal presence in the region - even on Labor Day, when news is far from most Americans' minds - may act as a catalyst to shift perceptions...
...Critics say APEC's successes are vague and its influence fading. Former Australian P.M. Paul Keating, who helped convene the first leaders' summit in 1993, has slammed APEC as "a talk shop of debatable output." The region has other forums, notably the 16-member East Asian Summit. But, says HSBC's Edwards, only APEC "includes both China and the U.S. and all the economies that have most to lose if their relationship broke down. There are all sorts of points of tension between the two that can be modulated by the diplomacy of the others." With many members allied with...