There is still surprisingly little in-depth reporting about what led to Libya’s makeover — but plenty of reaction Some on the left are complaining that Bush and Blair are embracing a crackpot dictator. Others on the right are rejoicing that this makes the Bush policies look good. Those in the middle tend to be more [...]

Mauritanian police have accused Libya of being behind last month’s attempted coup:
Judicial police chiefs said the alleged coup plot “has been financed by the Libyan special services”.
“Everyone in Nouakchott knows it,” the police said in a statement late Thursday.
However, little evidence has been unearthed about Libya’s involvement.

Zvi Bar’el points out that suddenly they’re no longer incompatible.

In a completely unexpected announcement, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi has said that he would give up his WMD program, allow inspectors unconditional access and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The news was broken by British PM Tony Blair, who also broke the news last week that Saddam Hussein had been captured. According to Blair,
“Libya came to [...]

David Kay, the head of the WMD search team in Iraq, has reportedly resigned. This article from The Independent also discusses the declining importance of the WMD search to the White House, much to the detriment of Downing Street. I wonder whether the accusations that he was hiding WMDs will be brought up against [...]

Another episode in the life of the Kingdom of Ridicule…

A picture published by the Iraqi National Congress’ mouthpiece showing Ahmed Chalabi talking to Saddam Hussein is stirring controversy that Chalabi is using the moment to humiliate Saddam and draw support:

The newspaper which normally sells about 5,000 copies was snapped up before it barely reached the stands and though many did not approve there were [...]

Juan Cole is following breaking news about the bombing of the headquarters of the Badr Brigade, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
Since the militias are overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurd, and the resistance is largely Sunni Arab, this was an announcement that the former were going to be used [...]

Lauren Sandler of The Nation has just published a truly worrying article about the situation for women in Iraq since the occupation began:
Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April. They have been forced into this situation by a menacing triple [...]

Amir Oren, Haaretz’s military correspondent, has a shocking editorial today in which he advocated settling the Palestinians in northern Sinai to solve Israel’s “demographic problem”:

The only natural expanse for the surplus Palestinian population is in northern Sinai, along the coastal plain south of Rafah until Lake Bardawil and the city of Al-Arish. A new and [...]

Jimmy Breslin’s editorial in Newsday is mind-boggling for two reasons: one, that such a great number of Americans seem to think that Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks despite all the media attention that he is getting since his arrest, and secondly that the role of the Bush administration in spreading that notion is still [...]

This has long been rumored, but now seems actually closer to starting: Al Hurra (The Free One) is the name of the forthcoming US-funded Arabic-language TV station. Although based in Virginia, it seems one of its major offices will be in Baghdad. There is considerable irony that this will yet another state-controlled TV station, although [...]

Haaretz notes a new study by the CIA’s National Intelligence Council posits that no peace is possible until Arafat’s death and perhaps long after that:

The intelligence estimate casts doubt on the likelihood of a full peace settlement materializing in the years before 2020; nonetheless, should an Israel-Palestinian agreement for a “cold peace” win support among [...]

Benyamin Netanyahu has pitched in his two cents in the growing debate on the Israeli right over the demographic threat that Palestinians both inside and outside Israel present:

Netanyahu added that Israel does not face a demographic threat from the Palestinians who will be under Palestinian control and will enjoy “self determination” in the future, but [...]

Egypt is getting worried about Kenya’s intention to withdraw from the 1929 Water Nile accord which regulates usage of the Nile south of Egypt and keeps most of the water for Egypt’s use.
Egypt has reacted strongly to the announcement made by the Kenyan government in which it called for unilaterally revoking the 1929 Water Nile [...]

This comment piece by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post is telling of an evolving concern in the Israeli right about Egypt, and especially Egypt after Mubarak.
One of the worst-kept secrets in our region is that aside from Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Egypt is the greatest looming threat to Israel’s national security. As our [...]

Nyier Abdou has an interesting article in the Independent about the rise of muhagaba fashion in Egypt:
The increasing number of women wearing the hijab has brought about a radical change in the image of the Egyptian woman. As young, urbane women increasingly take the veil, age-old associations between hijab and the traditional religious conservatism dissipate. [...]

I missed a few days ago with the whole Saddam capture thing, but it’s worth noting that President Bush has (reluctantly?) signed the Syria Accountability Act.
The legislation says Syria has provided a safe haven for anti-Israel terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad and is accused of pursuing the development and production of biological [...]

The official announcement was made by Tony Blair at 11:15am London time, although the Iranian National News Agency and a few members of the Iraqi Governing Council knew of the arrest earlier. President Bush is set to make an announcement later in the day.
According to Ahmed Chalabi’s spokesman, Entifadh Qanbar, Saddam had dug a hole [...]

Rush Holt, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, and 34 others (mostly Democrats) have cosponsored a bill that would provide increased federal funding for languages considered to be critical to national security.
Al Qaeda operates in over 75 countries, where hundreds of languages and dialects are spoken. However, 99 percent of American high school, college [...]

It’s incredible this story has been kept around for so long considering the lack of evidence, but it seems that there is a new nail in the coffin of the alleged Iraqi intelligence-Muhammad Atta Prague meeting. The New York Times’ excellent intelligence correspondent, James Risen, reported today that the Iraqi agent who was supposed to [...]

Thomas Friedman’s NYT editorial today has a rather unusual portrayal of Ehud Olmert,a figure on the far Israeli right who is a top Sharon advisor and a former mayor of Jerusalem.

Last week, an earthquake happened in Israel when a leading figure of the Israeli right split away and embraced the logic of the Israeli left [...]

Haaretz is running a story about a demographer who claims there are today more non-Jews than Jews in the area currently comprising of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. This is the kind of thing that extremist Jews in Israel often use to advocated ethnic cleansing, which they call “transfer.” The demographer also claims that [...]

A story about the death of John Kokal, a State Department official working in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (INR/NESA), is making the rounds on the alternative websites, but not the mainstream press. Many are reminded of the death of Dr. David Kelly, the British WMD expert:
In [...]

The new issue of Middle East Report is out and looks at the impact of US and Israeli policy in the Middle East on principles of international law, Morocco’s past, Jordan’s opposition, 9/11 and culture, Edward Said and more:
In the 1990s, the arrest of Pinochet and the trial of Milosevic seemed to herald a new [...]

The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh returns to an old hunting ground when he asks whether new plan by US Special Forces to form an assassination squad to tackle the Baathist/nationalist insurgency in Iraq will be a repeat of Vietnam:
The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In [...]

The Washington Monthly has this great who’s who of American officials in Iraq, which digs up quite a few Republican party fundraisers and other operatives. The list is quite impressive, running from long-time backers to the children of Reagan-era officials and former Carlyle Group executives.

It’s also driven journalists on the ground, watching these operatives move [...]

The report that the European Commission prevented from being printed has been unofficially posted for download on an EU website. The report is said by Jewish organizations to have been held because it linked anti-Semitism with Muslim and Arab immigrant communities in Europe, although the EU itself gives different reasons:
In February this year, the Management [...]

This AP story is making the rounds:
The United Nations’ culture agency plans to issue a public denunciation of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” dismissed by historians as a forgery to discredit Jews, amid criticism that the book had gone on display in Egypt and that an official there had made anti-Semitic remarks about [...]

Don’t miss TPM’s eye-opening post on President Bush’s appointment of James Baker as a personal envoy to Iraq to deal with, among other things, with the Saddam regime’s odious debt. Baker’s law firm currently represents Saudi Arabia, which was a major creditor to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and also sits on the board of [...]

Israel announced that it would build 1720 more houses in the West Bank and Gaza this year, creating more facts on the ground. This Washington Post piece quotes Raanan Gissin, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon’s spokesman, as saying this was approved by Colin Powell:
Israel has also agreed to freeze the number, but not the size, of [...]

Two good pieces on why Shia clerics such as Ayatollah Sistani, who is opposing a US proposal for indirect elections, are key power brokers and a potentially divisive force. Both are by noted Arabist journalists — Anthony Shadid and Nicholas Blanford.

George Packer has reportedly written a fantastic piece on Iraq for the New Yorker. More on this when I’ve read the whole 20,000 words.

The conservative Brookings Institution hosted an event on December 2 to discuss “First-Hand Views From Iraq.” The Panel includes Martin Indyk, Charles Duelfer, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. Pollack in particular will be interesting as he was one of the main “moderate” voices in favor of the war, most notably through his best-selling book “The [...]

Juan Cole worries about the CPA’s decision to create a paramilitary force out of the members of five political party militias: ex-Baathists, Chalabists, SCIRI and two Kurdish groups. He sure sounds right.

In light of the recently announced elections, two female members of the Iraqi Governing Council have published this editorial in the New York Times arguing for a quota system to make sure women are represented in Iraqi politics and government. They model their idea on systems in existence in Scandinavia and Latin America, but warn [...]

Leftist post-Zionist thinker and Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling review three books on terror for The Nation:
Since 9/11, terror has become one of the most fashionable issues on both the American and the international agenda, and almost every publisher has rushed to publish a book written by one of the instantly created “experts on terrorism.” These [...]

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times snatched a rare interview of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad on December 1, which Assad used to call for renewed US-brokered negotiations for peace between Israel and Syria in the context . The main feeling from the interview is that Assad is growing increasingly concerned with the US [...]