IPS correspondents bring you independent perspectives on what is happening in Iran, Iraq and across the Middle East.

Obama Takes Offensive in Foreign Policy Speech
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – Setting the stage for his upcoming trips to Europe, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, Sen. Barack Obama has strongly denounced the Iraq War and re-affirmed his intention to withdraw U.S. combat troops from there by mid-2010 if he is elected president in November.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43199

AFGHANISTAN: Deadly Assault Could Alter U.S. Campaign Dynamics
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43183

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Arab-Israeli Conflict Tops Med Union Agenda
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO – Talk at the meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean, a French-led grouping of EU nations plus 16 non-European Mediterranean states, is dominated by issues related to the perennial Arab-Israeli dispute.
“Most Arab states participated in hope that the new union would adopt a balanced position on the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Ayman Abdelaziz Salaama, international law professor at Cairo University, told IPS.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43202

Mediterranean Union May Be Stillborn – By Julio Godoy
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43155

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IRAQ: Unrest Surfaces in Fallujah Again
Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail
FALLUJAH – Local militias supported by U.S. forces claim to have “cleansed” the city, 70 km to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city’s chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43205

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Israeli Magnate Draws Activists’ Ire
Omid Memarian
UNITED NATIONS – Having successfully lobbied UNICEF to stop accepting donations from Israeli billionaire Lev Avnerovich Leviev, activists are urging celebrities who have made public appearances with Leviev to cut all ties with him.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43196

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Israel Targets Hamas Orphanages
Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM – Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centres. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43188

Hamas-Israel Prisoner Swap Remains Elusive
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43187

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LEBANON: Radical Islam Comes to Town
Mona Alami
TRIPOLI – In the centre of one of Tripoli’s squares in north Lebanon, a large statue has been erected inscribed with the word ‘Allah’ in Arabesque calligraphy. The statue reflects the city’s reality, especially in light of the recent rise in Salafism, a radical form of Islam.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43173

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IRAQ: Refugees Forsaken Even By Their Own Government
Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON – As Iraq’s refugee crisis continues to worsen, the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is failing to help the estimated five million Iraqis who have been displaced by conflict, says a new report by the International Crisis Group.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43152

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Pull-Out Demand Signals Final Bush Defeat in Iraq
Analysis by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a timetable for complete U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, confirmed Tuesday by his national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has signaled the almost certain defeat of the Bush administration’s aim of establishing a long-term military presence in the country.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43140

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Israel Fears the Womb More Than the Bomb
Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has laid it out in the starkest possible terms for his fellow Israelis. If they do not relinquish control of the occupied territories, he has warned them, Israel will ultimately cease to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43136

Population Time Bomb Ticking Away in Gaza – By Mel Frykberg
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43135

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Q&A: “There Are No Negotiations Between Syria and Israel”
Interview with Mohsen Bilal, Syrian Minister of Information
DAMASCUS – “There are no negotiations between Syria and Israel in Istanbul — what is happening is an indirect exchange of messages via Turkey, to explore ways towards a possible negotiation,” Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told IPS.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43132

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BOOKS
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AUTHOR: TOM ENGELHARDT
“The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire”

Blogging Brobdingnagian Blowback
Khody Akhavi
WASHINGTON – It was neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer who, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, inaugurated Washington’s unipolar moment. “America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome,” he wrote then, before the Afghan and Iraq wars, before Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, before the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43192

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AUTHOR: PATRICK COCKBURN
“Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival, and the struggle for Iraq”

Muqtada – One Man’s Meat, Another Man’s Poison
Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON – “He is an American spy,” the militiamen shouted at Patrick Cockburn four years ago in Kufa, south of Baghdad. He could have hardly imagined that he would live to write a book on the very people who kidnapped him.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43180

For more IPS reporting on the Middle East – www.ipsnews.net/middle.asp

Iraq: Beyond the Green Zone – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iraq/index.asp

Iran: The Parthian Shot – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iran/index.asp

Holy Land/Unholy War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/israel_palestina/index.asp

Afghan Divide – www.ipsnews.net/afghanistan/index.asp

View From the U.S.: Bush at War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/warII/index.asp

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