APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula articles from June 2007

APS Diplomat Fate of the Arabian Peninsula archives from June 2007

US-IRAN - Pax Americana In Iraq Is Changing - Part 12.
June 18, 2007... Senator Joe Lieberman, an outspoken Congress hawk, on June 10 proposed the US bomb Iran to stop support for Iraqi militia. Lieberman, who ran independently in Nov. 7, 2006, mid-term elections after losing his Democratic Party's support, came...

Permanent US Stay?
June 18, 2007... As early proposals in notebooks at the White House and the Pentagon are slowly revealed to a US public increasingly opposed to the Iraq war, Middle East experts warn that any plan for permanent bases would cement the US image in Iraq and the...

Iraqi To Take More Control.(reconstruction)(Brief article)
June 18, 2007... Lt Gen. Martin Dempsey, who has been leading the US effort to reconstruct Iraq's forces for 22 months, on June 10 said Iraqi security forces should be in a position to take control of 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces by end-2007, although he cautioned...

US Benchmarks Become Obstacles.(Iraq)
June 18, 2007... Iraqi leaders have failed to reach agreement on nearly every law the US has demanded as a benchmark, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until reports on progress are due in...

De-Ba'thification.(Baath Party and legal reform)
June 18, 2007... Ever since the US purged members of the Ba'th Party from the government soon after the invasion in 2003, it has been trying to reform the policy. Some changes were made in 2004, bringing back teachers and people with technical expertise, but...

Shi'ite Shrine Attack Raises Tension.
June 18, 2007... A bomb attack on June 13 destroyed the two minarets of the Askariya shrine in Samarra' and was seen as an attempt to rekindle Sunni-Shi'ite violence, which has declined in recent months. It threatened to dash hopes that a deployment of US...

Maliki-Kurd Deal Against Allawi-Led Coup.(Iyad Allawi)
June 18, 2007... Maliki is said to have made an alliance with the Kurdish coalition against a bid by Sunnis and secular Shi'ites to topple the government through a no-confidence vote in parliament and put former PM Iyad Allawi in power. A rumour since May says...

US Prepares Northern Democracy.
June 18, 2007... The Christian Science Monitor on June 12 focused on the growing presence of US experts in law and management trying to develop governance by the rule of law in northern Iraq. It said: "When a new courthouse was recently dedicated in the mostly...

US Arming Sunnis To Fight Neo-Salafis.
June 18, 2007... With the four-month-old "surge" in US troops showing only modest success in curbing Neo-Salafi attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups which have promised to...

Gates In Baghdad.
June 18, 2007... US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on June 15 made an unannounced visit to Baghdad to urge PM Maliki to speed up national reconciliation among the various Iraqi sectarian, ethnic and political factions, while a US Air Force F-16 fighter jet...