A SUMMARY OF HOPE - The Middle East and Central Asia
This briefest of summaries is a round up of events in 2007 and how they augur for the future.
IRAQ stills gaps open like a bad wound. The government of Nur al Maliki has shown signs of widening its constitutencies to include Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Chaldeans, Turcomen and secular Shi'a. But the Iraqi National Party under Iyad Alawi is still outside - and its cold.
This month we will examine how and when the US will withdraw from Iraq. Needless to say there are many in the US who want US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely. These are the arrogant Republican know-nothings who started the war.
Before we go on, it is necessary to remind everyone that the situation(s) in the Region, and in Iraq in particular, is highly fluid. It changes every week. The Iraq invaded in 2003 is not the Iraq of 2008. If you are often perplexed, maybe it means you are flexible enough to go with the big weekly changes taking place.
IRAN is economically falling apart because it cannot procure spare parts or do any kind of business with non-Iranian companies. Discontent has been steadily rising and now new shortfalls occur - lack of oil, gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, feedstocks, fertilizer, and imported food.
AFGHANISTAN -
MIddle East Speculum Report
About Me
- John Paul Maynard
- John Paul Maynard conducts independent social science research projects, A legal anthropologist, he studies unwritten codes. He is a graduate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and did his PhD work at NYU, on Islamic land law. He lives in Tashkent.
