Foreign Press Review

031708f - FOREIGN PRESS REVIEW (FPR) - ‘Relevant news, views, comments and analyses for informed debate’ Compiled by Şanlı Bahadır Koç U.S. / Britain / Turkey / Magazines / Think-tanks / Blogs / Misc /Books / Quickread / Numbers / Reports - Subscribe to FPR FPR Table - H4 NYT WP GU H7 ME Isr H10 CSM IHT Eur FSU Asia

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H1 NYT Reflections on the Invasion of Iraq To mark this week’s fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to assess their previous and current outlook. Bremer, Perle, Slaughter, Pollack, Pletka, Fick, Eaton, Kagan, Cordesman

Fateful Choice on Iraq Army Bypassed Debate By MICHAEL R. GORDON The decision by L. Paul Bremer III to dissolve Iraq’s Army was a reversal from a plan the White House had approved.

War Torn Five Years By JOHN F. BURNS Looking back on the Iraq war at its fifth anniversary — and reckoning with its staggering costs

FAREED ZAKARIA Stuck in the Iraq Loop We have achieved some security in Iraq. But we have not built a sustainable security architecture.

Jane's on Iranian Weaponization [1] Documents shown exclusively to Jane’s indicate that Iran is continuing its pursuit of the advanced technologies necessary to develop a nuclear weapon, regardless of Tehran’s claims that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful. Jane’s was shown the information by a source connected to a Western intelligence service, and the documents were verified by a number of reliable independent sources in Vien

William Arkin Six Signs the US Is Not Headed for War in Iran

Seven of 10 Iraqis want foreign forces leave

Iraq By the Numbers

Financial Times Alan Greenspan: We will never have a perfect risk model The essential problem is that our models – both risk models and econometric models – as complex as they have become, are still too simple to capture the full array of governing variables that drive global economic reality, writes Alan Greenspan

Christian Science Monitor

On Iraq policy, next U.S. president will have to adapt Despite their rhetoric, '08 candidates try to keep their options open

Iran election: hard-liners hold on, despite high inflation Conservatives win 70 percent of parliament. But reformers gain, too

Is the Mahdi Army's 'cease-fire' over? Recent clashes between the militia and Iraqi forces threaten to undo a lull in the group's activities.

Bernanke and Paulson: economy's two key crisis managers The Fed chairman and the Treasury secretary face tough scrutiny as policymakers

Mistakes in Iraq, But War Was Just – Richard Perle, Sunday Telegraph

McClatchy Iraq war's cost: Loss of U.S. power, prestige, influence

5 years after Iraq's 'liberation,' there are worms in the water Five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis still swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter because of a lack of electricity. Government rations are inevitably late, incomplete or expired. Garbage piles up for days, sometimes weeks, emanating toxic fumes

Why Shariah? - Noah Feldman, New York Times Magazine Millions of Muslims think Shariah means the rule of law. Could they be right?

Paul Kennedy Measuring American Power in Today`s Fractured World

Kissinger: "Talk to Iran"

Washington Post Waiting Games in the Middle East By David Ignatius, Syria, Iran and Iraq hope they'll get a better deal with the next president

Needed: Honesty on Iraq By Jim Hoagland Without tying their hands, the candidates need to answer hard questions.

A Crude Case for War? Steven Mufson | We did not invade Iraq to make it safe for Big Oil, but oil was a major factor in the decision to go to war

Fed Takes Broad Action To Avert Financial Crisis Central bank backs the acquisition of Bear Stearns by J.P. Morgan for $2 a share, cuts key interest rate and increases flow of money to other banks

New Task for a Budget Straight-Talker By David S. Broder, David Walker warns that the country is courting disaster by not paying its bills.

Mideast Players Differ On Approach to Hamas

Moving Forward in Armenia By Serzh Sargsyan and Arthur Baghdasaryan, Why the international community should support our coalition government

WINEP Cheney's Middle East Trip: Iran Tops a Weighty Agenda

CFR Serwer: Iraqis Beginning to Show Signs of Political Compromise

New York Times Fed Acts to Rescue Financial Markets The Fed approved a $30 billion loan for the takeover of Bear Stearns and announced a new lending tool for investment firms

PAUL KRUGMAN The B Word When the feds do bail out the financial system, what will they do to ensure that they aren’t also bailing out the people who got us into this mess?

For Democrats, Increased Fears of a Long Fight Many superdelegates cite the will of the voters as a guiding principle, a boon to Senator Barack Obama

Reformers Gain in Iran Vote Despite Being Barred

WILLIAM KRISTOL Generation Obama? Perhaps Not. In Barack Obama’s political career, there is the calculation of ambition, and the construction of artifice, mixed in with a dash of deceit.

GuardianThe Iraq experience has laid bare the limits of raw military power Max Hastings: The next US president must reject the juvenile Bush vision, reach out to Iran and seek justice for the Palestinian people

We talked to the IRA, so why can't we talk to al-Qaida?Jackie Ashley: A former adviser to Blair says we should keep lines open to terrorists. It was rubbished by No 10, but he's right

Spotlight on grievance Martin Jacques: Events in Tibet expose China's achilles heel: its inability to recognise and respect ethnic difference

Revealed: Blair's offer to meet masked IRA leaders Former PM was willing to hold secret meetings in desperate bid to save Northern Ireland peace process

Death, destruction and fear on the streets - Iraq: five years on

Award-winning journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad returns to the city where he was born and lived for 30 years

Ha’aretz – American intervention now Pressure to put an end to the bloodshed and guarantee the Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic country is welcome pressure

FT JPMorgan to buy Bear Stearns for $236m JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $2 a share for the stricken US investment bank in a deal that puts an end to Bear’s 85 years of independence and highlights the risks faced by banks during the credit crunch

Bill’s trap of Clinton-Obama ticketObama will have other chances to be president and in low moments he may feel there are worse things in the meantime than being vice-president, writes Clive Crook

Macedonia ready to bend on name dispute The country says it will bend as far as necessary in its protracted ‘name dispute’ with Greece in return for a Nato membership invitation

Quentin Peel: Russia on a game of diplomatic chicken Quentin Peel writes about Russia’s dangerous moves to demonstrate its displeasure over the precedent Kosovo might set for other declarations of independence closer to home

Fed cuts bank rate to boost confidence The US Federal Reserve made a surprise 25-basis-point cut in the discount rate and created a new lending facility in an effort to ‘promote liquid, well-functioning financial markets’

Sarkozy must reform furtherFrance is still full of absurd restrictive practices for which the president’s party has a great deal to answer, writes Wolfgang Münchau

Trouble in Tibet Beijing should stop hiding behind its accusations that ‘splittists’ are behind the bloodshed and start dealing seriously with Tibetan grievances

Iran’s conservatives claim poll victory The government can claim victory but analysts said how much support Ahmadi-Nejad enjoys in the next parliament will depend on whether he takes decisive action to fix Iran’s economic woes

Oil tops Cheney's Middle East tour agenda

Ahmadi-Nejad will face big challenges The much diminished prospect of a US attack on Iran has opened up debate in Iran, and gives Washington a chance to offer Tehran a bargain

Newsweek COVER STORY: IRAQ Scions of the Surge

Tom Barnett Scripps Howard. Losing America's middle ground means losing our way

Juan Cole Reflections on Petraeus's Comments On lack of Political Progress

The Surge in Iraq: One Year Later by Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, Heritage Foundation - 13 March lecture transcript (pdf).

Dollar Doomsayers Draw Signs From Bernanke Rate Cuts (Update2) Bloomberg

Guardian Glaciers melt faster than ever before World's glaciers are melting faster than at any time since records began, says new report

Independent Brown: There will be a public inquiry into Iraq Gordon Brown has promised that the Government will hold a full-scale inquiry into the mistakes made in Iraq before and since the invasion.

Where are they now? The faces of the Iraq war five years on

Partick Cockburn: A gross failure that ignored history and ended with a humiliating retreat

The Observer Five years on, the hard lessons that we must learn from Iraq Leader: The war was a blow to the idea of 'liberal intervention' but not necessarily a fatal one

NYT After Elections Setback, a Chastened Sarkozy Presses On

Los Angeles Times ,McCain, both pragmatist and hawk The presidential nominee has taken diverse foreign policy positions over his 25 years in Congress.

Iraqi feel-good stories prove elusive Some American readers clamor for upbeat reports, but positive news is not easy to find

Foreign fighters in Iraq seek recognition, U.S. says Interrogations of 48 detainees to understand their motivations provide a picture of typically young, lonely recruits.

Boston Globe Another year, another $300 billion THE SIXTH year of the Iraq war begins this week. The war is now the second-longest in US history - longer than any except Vietnam. So far, 1.6 million US troops have served, more than a third of them for two or more tours of duty. Almost 4,000 US service personnel have been killed, and 60,000 wounded, injured or contracted ... (By Linda Bilmes, Boston Globe)

Boston Globe State Inc. The most important new forces in global business are aggressive, wealthy, and entrepreneurial. But they aren't corporations: they're authoritarian governments. (By Joshua Kurlantzick, Boston Globe)

Jerusalem Post The Region: What to do about Gaza: The realistic... [ BARRY RUBIN

Ha’aretz Bar’el Until we reach the End of Days Israel could conduct two-headed talks: one with Hamas, over the important issues such as security, and the second with the PA - over nothing.

• 'How Will the IDF Confront Regional Threats? A Strategic Overview' by Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, Commander of Israeli Air Force, for Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Drezner Good gossip from Brussels

Sunday Times Imperialism lite prolongs Iraqi horror Today’s imperialism lite, by debating its departure, induces instability, foments rebellion and undermines its mission. A nation was alienated and nation-building turned from mission improbable to mission impossible Simon Jenkins

Be bold, Gordon, trust the people

Politics is struggling with assertive citizens, diverse societies and globalised economies. They all call for new ideas

Diplomatic 'surge' to boost Middle East peace

Neocons and supporters have lost the argument The Great Divide: Times writers continue the debate that still splits the country. Matthew Parris is against the war

NYRB Condi and the Boys
By Russell Baker
On Condoleezza Rice: An American Life by Elisabeth Bumiller, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush by Robert Draper, and The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy by Glenn Kessler.

A New Deal in Pakistan
By William Dalrymple
Over the last few years there has been something of an existential crisis in Pakistan, at the heart of which lay the question: What sort of country did Pakistanis want? Did they want a Western-style liberal democracy, as envisaged by the poet Iqbal, who first dreamed up the idea of Pakistan, and by the country's eventual founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah? An Islamic republic like Mullah Omar's Afghanistan? Or a military-ruled junta of the sort created by Generals Ayyub Khan, Zia, and Musharraf, who, among them, have ruled Pakistan for thirty-four of its sixty years of existence?

The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why?
By Michael Massing

The Troubled Birth of Kosovo By Charles Simic

H 2 NYT Suit Seeks to Bar Party of Premier in Turkey