Word: regionally
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...trouble in Qatar and the other oil sheikdoms, of course, goes far deeper. Quite apart from perennial fears about Iraq and Iran, the region faces a potentially fatal combination of declining economic growth, rising democratic opposition and mounting Islamic extremism. The gulf is the West's economic lifeline, and a serious threat to the flow of oil would jeopardize millions of jobs in industrialized countries. While Hamad's cautious reforms, like his cool handling of his family feud, have proved generally popular at home, they are eyed with nervousness and suspicion in the tradition-bound region, which includes Saudi Arabia...
...even a modest reformer prevail in a deeply conservative region? Qatar has a defense agreement with Washington, but the U.S. may not protect an Emir who is cozy with Iran and Iraq. Qatari traditionalists and some Western analysts believe it is naive to push democratic values in a society where many customs have remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. Over lunch, Hamad did something that still seems unthinkable to many. He introduced one of his three wives, Jassem's mother, who was modestly dressed in an ankle-length suit rather than in the customary robe. As she spoke of improving...
...into Kabul on Sept. 27 and pushed the armies of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the former government's army commander, into the hills surrounding the capital. Zai was captured Oct. 13 near the Salang Pass, the high-water mark of the Taliban effort to drive Massoud's forces from the region. The campaign turned disastrous when Massoud retreated until the Taliban had stretched their lines dangerously thin. Then the Lion of Panjshir turned and abruptly struck at their flanks, a tactic he had used many times against the Soviets...
...have no apparent problem sifting the wheat from the chaff on all topics--domestic and international--seem to suffer selective blindness when the subject is the Middle East. Israel is always in the wrong, the Palestinians always right. No matter that Israel is the only country in the region that is a democracy, with a free press, that 30-odd Israeli political parties express every shade of opinion from the far right to the far left, or that no political action in Israel goes uncriticized. Why then is the American press so quick to accept misstatements and unfounded claims...
Equally important, the race tests the party's ability to bridge its racial divisions in the South. Louisiana Democrats, like others in the region, have split into two camps: Landrieu's largely white moderate wing and Fields' predominantly black liberals. Landrieu, a former state treasurer and political moderate--pro-choice but, like Bob Dole, in favor of a capital-gains tax cut--ran afoul of her party's liberals last year when she and Fields were locked in a bitter gubernatorial primary. Fields backers say it was racially insensitive of her to run ads saying she was more electable than...