Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...reason for Washington's eagerness to talk is simple: As much as it would prefer not to admit it, the U.S. will struggle to achieve its goals in Iraq without Iranian cooperation, because Tehran retains far more influence than Washington does over the Shi'ite religious parties that have emerged dominant from Iraq's democratic elections. Right now, the political process in Iraq remains stalled by the failure among its elected leaders to agree on a unity government, as the Shi'ites push back against Washington's urging to do more to accommodate Sunni concerns...
...Washington were to act on its threat of withdrawing support from the new government in order to squeeze concessions from the Shi'ites, the Shi'ites in turn might look to draw Tehran into a more active role in the country. But if the U.S. could find agreement with Iran over the principles of power sharing in Baghdad, Tehran's help in delivering the Shi'ites could prove decisive. At minimum, Iran's help could be indispensable in restraining the Shi'ites in the face of provocative sectarian attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq...
...Iran's National Security Council head, Ali Larijani, said Thursday that Iran had agreed to talk in response to a plea by its most powerful ally in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest party in the Shi'ite bloc. Hakim, caught in the maelstrom of his country's rising sectarian tension, certainly has an interest in achieving a measure of accord between his longtime backers in Tehran and the U.S.; he knows better than most that the survival of the political system which has handed him so much power still depends on the U.S. military presence...
...just the pleadings of its Shi'ite brethren in Iraq that has convinced Tehran to come to the bargaining table. The collapse of the new Iraqi political order into civil war would threaten the influence Iran has gained in Iraq through the workings of democracy, and could even draw Iran into a damaging regional conflict. Then, of course, there is the nuclear issue: As its case comes before the UN Security Council, Iran has an incentive to portray itself as a responsible geopolitical actor, helping to stabilize a neighbor that has become a fount of Middle East instability...
...sprawling ruminations on age-old concepts (as in “69 Love Songs”); no coy word games (as in 2004’s “i”) that alternately charm and annoy the critics. Still, this album has a lot to unpack. Director Chen Shi-Zheng, Merritt’s theatrical collaborator, builds his drama on age-old stories that, like a puzzle, simultaneously attract and deflect the audience. Unsurprisingly, the plays are all built on somewhat macabre premises: “The Orphan of Zhao” dramatizes the historic massacre of the Zhao...