Foreign Press Review

031908f - 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 H13 Times WSJ FT LAT H16 USP DT Ind H19 Mil Int Ter Wonk H21 Misc

H1 Video Obama's 'A More Perfect Union' Speech (38 min) Text

NYT Editorial Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage What is evident is that Barack Obama not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion of race and religion to a higher plane.

Washington Post What if The Fed Fails? By David Ignatius, One has to ask what's next if this week's rescue measures aren't successful.

5 Years In Iraq Iraqis and Americans Offer Perspectives on the War

Financial Times The Fed risks doing too much It is hard to escape a growing sense of disquiet about the dangers and consequences of the US Federal Reserve’s aggressive monetary policy

Washington’s dilemma over troop surge Five years after the start of the war, George W. Bush and the Pentagon are grappling with whether they should sustain troop levels beyond the summer or whether the stress on the military requires a continued reduction in forces

US pays price in power for Iraq role US power and prestige around the world continues to suffer from the war in Iraq and its aftermath, and the next president will struggle to repair the damage, many foreign policy specialists argue

Khamenei emerges as supreme poll victorIran’s fundamentalists were the big winners in last week’s parliamentary elections but the biggest victory of all went to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive Just as it is particularly difficult to know whether a manager is skilful rather than lucky, it is hard to distinguish talented managers from untalented, so the business is bound to attract the unscrupulous and unskilled, writes Martin Wolf

The high cost of fighting a losing battle Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz on the Iraq war

America must be a good role model John McCain calls for a League of Democracies

INSIGHT - ALAN RUSKIN: The dollar's painful role in rebalancing the global economy

Stratfor's War: Five Years Later | Stratfor

U.S.: Stirring Up Minority Discontent in Iran By: Joshua Kucera | Eurasianet Representatives of Iran's ethnic and religious minorities told US elected officials that their people face various forms of discrimination, in what participants said was the first Congressional hearing focusing on internal minority issues in Iran

Der Spiegel Nazi Atrocities, Committed by Ordinary People From doctors to opera singers, teachers to truant schoolchildren, the extermination of European Jews was the work of roughly 200,000 ordinary Germans and their helpers. Years of research -- not yet complete -- reveal how sane members of a modern society committed murder for an evil regime.

Slate The Full Obama

Barack Obama's sweeping speech on race. John Dickerson

Five Years Gone What, exactly, has the Iraq war achieved? A lot? A little something? Nothing at all?
Fred Kaplan

How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I forgot that security must come first if democracy is to come later. Josef Joffe

How Did I Get Iraq Wrong? I thought we had a chance to stabilize an unstable region, and—I admit it—I wanted to strike back.
Richard Cohen

Can't We Ignore Race? Please? The trouble with Obama's speech. Mickey Kaus

How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?

I'm proud of my service there, but now it's time for us to leave. Phillip Carter

Independent Robert Fisk: The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn Five years on, and still we have not learnt. With each anniversary, the steps crumble beneath our feet, the stones ever more cracked, the sand ever finer. Five years of catastrophe in Iraq and I think of Churchill, who in the end called Palestine a "hell-disaster".

Patrick Cockburn: This is the war that started with lies, and continues with lie after lie after lie

Our legacy is a dark and forbidding place of militias

Leading article: Five years after the invasion, the totality of our failure is clear

Yedioth Ahronoth 'Occupation' can't last' Egypt's Mubarak says Israel 'will not achieve security through collective punishment, aggressiveness, raids, sieges, blockades and construction of settlements'. Israeli official: IDF will continue to operate against Hamas

The Times Iraq: Five Years Hence What must happen for Iraq to be an established success in 2013

Obama attacks US state of 'racial stalemate' Barack Obama concentrates on race for the first time, describing it as the issue the 'nation cannot afford to ignore'

Inside Blair's brain

Lord Owen examines Tony Blair’s psyche - and is concerned

Neocons: idealists with guns or evil ideologues? The rise and influence of the neocons was exaggerated – but so were the stories of their fall from grace, writes Gerard Baker

International Crisis Group - Kosovo's First Month

Barbara Slavin has posted her interview with Iran's recently departed nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani

Democracy in Retreat - Larry Diamond, Real Clear Politics

Importance of Fallon's Fall - Michael Barone, Washington Times

Daily Star Cheney's regional tour: returns to the scenes of the crimes

Stalemate is increasing Hamas' popularity
By Rami G. Khouri

What soccer tells us about the paradoxes of globalization
By Dani Rodrik

Drezner - New York Times do not know what the word "deterrence" means

Al Awsat Disarming Hezbollah and American-Iranian Rapprochement : Huda al Husseini

Interview with Dr. Alon Liel

NYT Progress in U.S.-Russia Talks

Reconciliation Conference Highlights Iraq’s Deep Political and Religious Fissures

EDM Russia Mulls Stronger Energy Policies in Central Asia BY SERGEI BLAGOV
The upcoming political transition in Russia, in which Dmitry Medvedev will succeed Vladimir Putin as president, may possibly accelerate a trend in Central Asia, in which the Kremlin uses its abundance of energy as a lever to achieve its geopolitical aims.

Cheney Promotes New US-Iraq Agreement

Iraqi moderate?
How firebrand Shia cleric Sadr evolved in last five years

Lebanon: The lead article in the March edition of MERIA, an Israeli journal of international affairs, examines the ongoing political implications of what it calls the “unfinished” 2006 Israeli war with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

Meet the Winner The Economist
The parliament returned by Iranians in nationwide voting on Friday March 14th appears at first glance to be a replica of the outgoing one. Conservatives who claim stricter adherence to the 1979 Islamic revolution’s ideals, and adopt a more combative tone with the outside world, retained a majority almost as crushing as the one they gained in the last parliamentary election, in 2004

Poll Shows Palestinians Now Favor Hamas Over Fatah By: Richard Boudreaux | Los Angeles Times During three months of foundering peace talks overshadowed by violence, the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has lost popular support and is now viewed as less legitimate than the Islamist government of rival group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to a poll released Monday

Wall Street Journal

Discovering Obama
The Senator tries to rehabilitate his image and rationalize his racial contradictions.

Fed Cuts by Three-Quarter Point

A divided Fed cut interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.25%, delivering less than the markets hoped for despite the magnitude of the move. (Statement)

Inflation Dissent
The Fed's rate cut was less than some had predicted, but more than others were comfortable with.

No Surrender
By Fouad Ajami
We've not always fought most wisely or skillfully. Five years on, Iraq still isn't perfect. But we've made it a better country.

H2 Steven A. Cook on Tough times for Turkey's generals

FT AKP threat worsens turmoil in Turkey Turkey’s stock market fell 9 per cent after a judicial attempt to shut down the governing party rattled investors amid warnings that it would cause grave political instability

[ANALYSIS] Russia, US battle for Turkish missiles

BBC Dissident Muslims
The Alevi sect pushes for rights in Sunni-dominated Turkey

Kuzey Irak'tan Türkiye'ye jest

Cheney bizden ne istiyor?

Cheney meets with Kurdish leader Barzani ahead of Ankara talks

The challenge to Erdogan’s AKP Kathimerini

EDM AKP FACING THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS OF ITS FAILURE TO CREATE JOBS

RFE Project To Revise Hadith Gets Mixed Reactions Western media have called it "revolutionary," "radical," even "21st-century Islam." But according to those involved, Turkey's project to reinterpret the Hadith, Islam's second-most-sacred source after the Koran, is anything but radical.