Word: restrainer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...could get the parties to agree to the terms for creating one. Washington has never had the power to bend either adversary to its will, and now its influence is at low ebb. After months of mixed messages and policy shifts, Bush dispatched his Secretary of State to restrain Sharon and Arafat, only to watch both sides continue the slaughter. Despite three public calls by Bush for Israel to withdraw, Israeli forces trampled through the West Bank, bulldozing suspected terrorist safe houses and bombmaking facilities, stripping hundreds of Palestinian men, cutting off water and electricity in some towns and laying...
Israeli-Palestinian violence flared anew Friday, amid growing Arab frustration over what they see as the Bush administration's failure to restrain Ariel Sharon. Twelve Palestinians have been killed in clashes in Gaza since Thursday night, as gunmen have launched new attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers there, and Israeli tanks invaded the Rafah refugee camp. Gaza had been relatively quiet over the past month as violence raged on the West Bank, but Palestinian leaders there may be inclined to take the initiative right now, which would stoke the regional political fires that first forced the Bush administration to intervene...
...understanding for Israel's need to defend itself; the Palestinians refer to the administration's recent demands on Israel and its support for U.N. resolutions requiring immediate Israeli withdrawal. Sharon expects that support for his offensive on Capitol Hill and from some senior players in the Bush administration will restrain the White House from putting him under significant pressure. Arafat may be betting that the dramatic hardening of moderate Arab opinion against the U.S. caused by the crisis will force Washington to turn the screws on Sharon...
...political agreements with the Israelis. The fact that the U.S. is now drawing a close link between a cease-fire and political negotiations over Palestinian statehood may have created more of an incentive for Arafat to embrace a deal, but the bitterness created by the Israeli incursions could restrain him. And like Sharon, he's likely to struggle to avoid making any move that might be construed as a retreat...
...More worrisome is the possibility that Musharraf, with no nationwide political organization to back him, may cozy up to the extremist Islamic groups he's been trying to restrain. He'll win the referendum of his choosing, but if doing so emboldens the forces of Islamic extremism, that victory could end up Pyrrhic...