With the Quartet (the US, Russia, European Union and United Nations) declaring that the deadlock in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a threat to region's whole security and condemning Israel for its inaction following the end of 10-month freeze on settlement expansion in the West Bank; the circle around West Jerusalem is tightening.
Success/withdrawal is dead. Long live the new date for success/non-withdrawal.
The amnesia in most of the reporting on this week's NATO summit on Afghanistan is quite remarkable. No one mentions that, only weeks ago, President Obama's policy was for a total pull-out of US combat forces by July 2011. Instead the assumption --- pushed by the US military --- was now established: troops would remain until 2014.
And now, even more remarkably, the media is pulled along with yet another narrative: "NATO and American officials also warned that if Afghanistan had not made sufficient progress in managing its own security, 2014 was not a hard and fast deadline for the end of combat operations."
It will be a perpetual transition.
Those expecting a radical change of NATO nuclear policy, or even an agreement to withdraw the 200 US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, are likely to be disappointed. But this not equate to lack of "progress": to the contrary, modifying its nuclear declaratory policy, NATO will begin moving towards a position where these weapons can be removed or at least ensure that its policy is broadly supportive of the international non-proliferation regime and the quest for a nuclear free world.
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 15:15