Sunday, December 02, 2007

An alternative view of Annapolis

Peace Through Anxiety -Michael B. Oren

[I]n spite of its glaring handicaps, Annapolis must be deemed a triumph — not of peacemaking, but of girding the region for conflict.

[P]articipants in the conference were above all motivated by their fear of a radical and relentlessly aggressive Iran. This fear has deepened with the success of the Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the expansion of Iranian influence westward into the Iraqi vacuum. That, and not American fiat, brought 49 states and organizations to Annapolis...

[T]he Iranians reacted ferociously to Annapolis. Ahmadinejad pronounced it a “failure” and the government-controlled press promised to “bring down Islamic wrath” on its participants. But such rage merely betrays the anxiety induced by Annapolis in Tehran. For the first time a coalition of Western and modern Arab leaders has coalesced and declared its commitment to resist “extremism” in the Middle East — a well-known euphemism for Iran.
[New York Times]

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