Word: standoff
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bremer's political headache began when he lost a standoff with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite majority, who insisted that a new Iraqi government must be directly elected rather than selected at caucuses under U.S. control. By demonstrating the overwhelming support for his position on the streets, Sistani won over a majority of the Governing Council and forced Bremer to bring in the United Nations to rule on the viability of elections - and in the process, the Shiite leader appears to have succeeded in giving the writ of the UN greater weight than...
...insist that the two sides find a political solution. But while they have for years criticized Aristide's refusal to accommodate his political opponents, outside observers are also critical of the opposition's insistence that no negotiations can be held before Aristide steps down. The resulting standoff has prevented any political solution, and the current wave of violence has made prospects for an accord even more remote...
...Iraqi Shiites in Washington's intentions. Sistani has played a masterful game of using his moral authority first to block U.S. efforts to transfer power to a government of its own making, and then to force them to bring back the UN as the final arbiter of the election standoff...
...Faced with an increasingly complex and messy situation in Iraq, the U.S. needs a lot more international help extricating itself than it needed going in - indeed, Washington's ability to prevent its standoff with the Shiite majority over elections from erupting into confrontation now depends on a UN team agreeing that elections by June are not practical. Mr. Cheney's mission in Europe appears to have been to mend fences in order to win European backing in Iraq and elsewhere. The problem, however, is that not only was U.S. diplomatic influence was severely damaged on the march...
...Daisy exhibits symptoms of Alzheimer's, a concerned Amy takes her mother in for tests; Daisy growls, "Nothing wrong my memory. Depress 'cause can not forget." Amy suffered for Daisy's traumas. In the short essay Confessions, the most harrowing piece in the collection, Amy recalls a violent standoff with her mother over her first real boyfriend, a confrontation that ended with Daisy holding a meat cleaver against her daughter's neck. Years later, when Alzheimer's has almost obliterated Daisy's memory, Amy asks her mother about the incident. Daisy laughs and dismisses it. Amy was always a good...