I arrived in Tunis on January 1, only a few days after a wave of rallies had erupted due to the suicide of an unemployed college graduate, who torched himself after police confiscated his fruit cart, cutting off his only source of income. Mohammed Bouazizi, 26, sold fruit and vegetables without the necessary vendor's permit in the town of Sidi Bouzid, located 160 miles from the country's capital Tunis.

At the time, Tunisians had been protesting for a couple of weeks over poor living conditions, high unemployment, government corruption and repression. Three people had been killed in the protests by the time of my arrival. The atmosphere was tense, public protests were rare in Tunisia where dissent was usually repressed; however, no one I spoke to in Tunis believed then that these demonstrations would lead to the ouster of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali who eventually fled the country to Saudi Arabia after ruling Tunisia for 23 years.

The Jasmine Revolution, as it is dubbed now, was not televised on Tunisia's main television station, Tunisie7, nor did it make headlines in the local press, but the news spread like wildfire on Facebook, YouTube, mobile phone, and to a lesser extent on Twitter (most of the tweets were from outside Tunisia).

Prior to my arrival to Tunis, I had spent the past five weeks in the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories debating social media, its impact on youth, and its relationship with journalism in the Arab world with my interlocutors.

It is very easy, but over-simplistic and naive to decide on a social media interpretation for the Jasmine Revolution, as we have been witnessing by many bloggers and self-appointed Middle East experts, many of whom neither speak Arabic nor have spent an extended period of time in the Middle East. They desperately want to convince us that Tunisians needed an external technological Western invention in order to succeed. A Twitter revolution of some sorts, as they previously labeled the Iranian Velvet Revolution, as though Arab masses were not capable on their own of saying "enough is enough."

Certainly social media was used as a communication tool for Tunisians to air their frustrations with the economy, unemployment, censorship, and corruption. But many factors lead to its success, such as a well organized trade unions movement, and the most potent weapon in the Arab world, the youth.

Population ageing is widespread across the world, but most Arab countries have been experiencing a youth explosion. More than one third of them are now unemployed. Tunisia is a bit different since it is one of the few Arab countries that opted for a family planning policy initiated during the rule of its first president, Habib Bourguiba. Tunisia, however, has also adopted a development plan with a focus on higher education, leaving a large number of young college graduates unemployed.

When I was driving around in Tunis, posters of President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali were sprinkled throughout the city with the slogan, "Together We Meet Challenges," a slogan meant to tout his plan of development by focusing on job creation, increasing revenue and enhancing Tunisia's positioning and influence on the regional and international scales. This obviously has failed, leaving a country of over- educated youth, many of whom are unemployed or doing menial jobs. Mohammed Bouazizi was the catalyst for their revolution.

Today, millions of Arab youth are disenchanted with politics and live a dramatic rupture with the state. Restrictions on freedom of expression, though improving in several countries, dominate the mass media in the Arab world. Social media has in many instances opened the door for them not only to share ideas, but also to take action. We've seen a vivid example of this during the Jeddah floods when the Saudi government tried to suppress the news about the devastation caused by nature due to poor infrastructure in the Arab world's richest country, but the news quickly spread on Facebook and the internet by concerned young Saudis. We've witnessed a bread revolution in Egypt, also driven by high unemployment and poverty; again initially transmitted to the outside world by young bloggers before it became international headlines.

Throughout history, when social discontent can no longer be contained, people have taken to the street to demand change. Having the most rudimentary technology, or none at all have not prevented these movements, a case in point being hand printed pamphlets distributed prior to the French Revolution, Gandhi's ability to inspire and mobilize through the exponential power of word of mouth, and the leaflets and tape recordings of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini speeches that were smuggled into the country prior to the Iranian Revolution.

Mohammed Bouazizi's self immolation was the expression not only of his despair, but that of youth throughout Tunisia ready to explode. Although they are an educated tech-savvy generation who were able to use social media as a tool, the underlying force was not a byproduct of this and the current situation would have come to pass with or without it.

Crediting social media with these revolutions however, trivializes them and does a disservice to the deep rooted issues that cause them.

As I was leaving Tunis on January 4, news spread again like wildfire of Mohammed Bouazizi's death at a hospital in the town of Ben Arous. Today, Mohsen Bouterfif died. Mohsen doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire on Thursday after a meeting with the mayor of the small city of Boukhadra who was unable to provide him with a job and housing. Boukhadra is in Algeria.

Article first published on the Huffington Post

This week gunmen overran a Christian church in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad during Sunday services, instantly murdering a priest and an acolyte. In the hostage siege that ensued, more than 50 people were killed and dozens were wounded when attackers sprayed bullets and set off suicide vests. The Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility and released a statement warning of more attacks to come against Christians.

During the rule of Saddam Hussein, there were an estimated 1.4 million Christians living in Iraq -- many of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, but also a smaller number of Roman Catholics.

Two-thirds of Iraq's Christians have left the country since 2003, according to some estimates -- leaving fewer than 450,000 Iraqi Christians there today. Tragically, more Iraqi Christians may now join the exodus as a result of Sunday’s massacre. They know that without a government to enforce law and order and with the Americans on the way out, there will probably be more attacks.

Al Qaeda militants want the exodus to continue. Al Qaeda in Iraq has declared war on half a million Iraqi Christians because two Egyptian women, who supposedly converted from Coptic Christianity to Islam, are rumored to be held prisoner by Coptic monks somewhere in Egypt. Al Qaeda in Iraq posted an internet statement saying "the killing sword will not be lifted" from the necks of Christians, in Iraq and across the region.

The speaker said his group will go after "your children" in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, adding there are hundreds of thousands of Christians and hundreds of churches on Islamic soil.  He said they will be targeted if Christians do not submit to his group's demands.

Leaders of the Coptic Church deny the women are being held anywhere, calling the assertion "an illusion in the minds of sick people.” Even if this story about the Coptic monks is true, it is utterly mind boggling why Iraqi Christians are held responsible for something done in Egypt? However, there has not been any logic behind all the death and destruction that have become a part of Iraqi daily lives.

Two days after the Sunday massacre, more than 70 people were killed and 250 wounded as sixteen car bombs and roadside bombs detonated across the city on Tuesday. The coordinated bombings seemed designed to demonstrate that Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups still have a significant presence in the capital.

"For the last four months we have seen attacks around Baghdad, but now they are inside (the city)," Mohamed al-Rubeiy, a Baghdad provincial council member for Karrada was quoted saying by the Associated Press. "Karrada is the center of Baghdad and Baghdad is the center of the government. That means the terrorists are sending a message to the world: 'We are back and we are here'."

Religious leaders from around the world condemned the attacks, including Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani. 

Condemnation, however, is not enough. Iraqi leaders and security forces must do more to protect a Christian population whose roots in the country reach back in history. Moreover Iraq's current security and political dysfunction could prove a liability to the entire region, becoming a deadly breeding ground for terrorist groups with global aspirations.

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Relations between the United States and Pakistan have quickly soured following a helicopter strike on a border post that killed three Pakistani soldiers last week. The incident prompted Pakistan to close an important border crossing for NATO supplies into Afghanistan. Criticism of the U.S. and NATO has dominated the news in Pakistani media even after the U.S. apologized for the incident.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has recently accused some elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting the terrorist networks in the country, thus undermining the war against terrorism by the U.S.-led international forces in the region. Recently, militants attacked 50 NATO supply trucks in Pakistan's northwestern town of Nowshera, the seventh attack in a short period of time. The U.S. has dramatically ramped up strikes with unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan's tribal areas in recent weeks.

But these are not the only stories that dominate Pakistani news. Reports about the human suffering due to the recent devastating floods, though they have all but vanished from Western newspapers, remain in the headlines in Pakistani ones. Terrorism acts are constant reminders of instability and insecurity for the average citizen, most recently punctuated by two blasts at a shrine in Karachi which left 9 dead and scores injured. The economy has tanked, inflation is at 18-20 percent, and the government seems to be helpless to do anything about it.

Pakistan is a troubled nation with deeply divided loyalties.

Even the once prestigious military establishment is now in trouble. A video purporting to show a group of Pakistani soldiers gunning down six blindfolded men in the country's troubled northwest has been circulating on the Internet for weeks. The troubling video has renewed long-standing concerns about military human rights violations during operations against the Taliban.

The war in Afghanistan has entered its tenth year. Many Pakistanis believe that “America’s War” has become their war. Fears are growing in Pakistan that the U.S. could bolster its drone attacks with a bombing campaign using fixed-wing aircrafts. This would most certainly increase Pakistani anger that could spill over into violence aimed at the thousands of Americans who are currently stationed in the country.

“The U.S. is trying to win its war in Afghanistan, through Pakistan,” says journalist Imtiyaz Mohammed.

He added that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is in a major predicament of trying to appease the United States while also trying to calm down an angry population.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is currently ranked the 10th most failed state in the 2010 Failed State Index released by Foreign Policy magazine this summer. Just three places below Afghanistan.

But former President Pervez Musharraf attributes Pakistan’s woes to "failure" of governance.

"I would say failure of governance is the greatest threat today," said Musharraf, who has announced his return to active Pakistani politics from London where he has been living in self-imposed exile since the general election of 2008.

However, many Pakistani pundits believe that this announcement is no coincidence, and has the United States' markings all over it.

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U.S. special envoy George Mitchell has been frantically shuttling between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in order to salvage the month-old direct negotiations. The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has also been recruited to throw the weight of the EU behind the peace efforts. Even President Obama himself has been personally involved, trying to find "common ground between the parties."

In fact, in order to secure Israel's support for a sixty-day settlement building moratorium extension, the Obama administration, in a draft letter, has offered a string of assurances to Israel ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached. The details of the letter were published on the Washington Institute for Near East Policy website by senior researcher David Makovsky. According to Haaretz, The United States is reportedly incensed over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of the draft letter.

Equally incensed is the head of the Palestinian negotiation team, Saeb Erekat, who said on Wednesday that "there are no half-way solutions on the settlements issue." Erekat and other PA officials have been recently hinting at a Palestinian walk out on the negotiations if Israel refuses to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. This decision could happen as early as Saturday when the Palestinian leadership meets, and be officially announced at the Arab League meeting in Cairo next week.

To make matters worse, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, revived his plan for "population exchange" before the UN General Assembly.

Lieberman, who heads the second largest party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, called for an "intermediate" accord with the Palestinians because it will take "a few decades" to establish the trust needed for a so-called final-status agreement. He suggested ceding parts of Israel with large Arab populations to a future Palestinian state in exchange for Israel keeping large settlement blocs in the West Bank, a proposal which has been part of his party's platform.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from the speech, but many Palestinians believe that this is part of a well-coordinated 'good cop, bad cop' strategy. They also regard the remarks as incitement and advocacy of ethnic cleansing.

A recent poll released by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that fifty-four percent of respondents said that the direct talks serve the national interests of the Palestinians. However, 58% said they believed the Palestinian leadership agreed to hold the talks because of external pressure, and more than 55% said they did not expect the talks to produce major changes in the status quo.

But there are rapid changes happening on the ground. Israeli building crews have already resumed work the day after the settlement freeze expired at several settlements, such as Ariel, Oranit, Tekoa and Adam. The building has actually never stopped in many other settlements. In the West Bank, there are more than 300,000 Jewish settlers living in around 100 settlements built adjacent to Palestinian towns and villages and are protected by the Israeli army. Approximately, 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers account for just one percent of the population of the West Bank, according to Dutch cartographer Jan de Jong, but are claiming 60 percent of the land.

"They are just one percent of the whole West Bank population, but they are claiming 60 percent of the land. The settlements are actually just built-up pockets, but the settlers include huge tracts of land around them by laying down barbed wire. So in effect it's more like estates, containing just a few houses."

De Jong who has been monitoring changes on the ground through satellite imagery and other means, says that construction was going on in the settlements even during the 10-month building moratorium which has just expired. "There was building work every day, except on Jewish holidays. That's why I call it a virtual moratorium."

The way things are progressing now, should the "direct talks" continue, a virtual Palestinian state might be the end result.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post
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Somalia has not had an effective government for almost 20 years. The Somali government has struggled to gain relevancy, but it has been plagued by corruption and has been battling warlords and militant groups such as the al-Qaeda- linked al-Shabab.

This week Augustine Mahiga, the U.N.'s top envoy for Somalia, warned that more international peacekeepers are needed in the war-ravaged country because of the growing threat from insurgent groups. He also told the Security Council that he is concerned by the deteriorating security situation in Somalia and its potential impact on the entire region.

"The threat level in Mogadishu and southern-central Somalia has actually increased, therefore, IGAD and the African Union foresee a new AMISOM troop level of up to 20,000 in the coming months. The African Union Peace and Security Council will soon submit to the U.N. Security Council a request for authorization for increased troop levels for Mogadishu and other strategic locations in Somalia," Mahiga said.

Recently, al-Shabab fighters disguised in Somali military uniforms stormed a hotel favored by lawmakers in the capital Mogadishu, firing indiscriminately and killing 32 people, including six parliamentarians. The attack came after a warning was issued by al-Shabab that a new “massive war” is about to be launched against the government. The militant group wants to establish a Taliban-style Islamic Sharia law in the country.

In a similar attack in December 2009, a suicide bomber detonated himself at a university graduation ceremony about 1.5 miles from the recent hotel attack, killing 24 people, including three government ministers, medical students and doctors.

These attacks show that al-Shabab, which controls wide areas of Somalia, can penetrate even the few blocks of the capital under the control of the government and African Union troops. The situation is reminiscent of Afghanistan before the entire country was overrun by the Taliban.

Is Somalia the next Afghanistan?

The current situation in Somalia is eerily similar to Afghanistan in the 1990s, which was in total disarray, with no central government or functioning economy. Warlords battled freely over territorial pockets and small weapons were plentiful. Yet , very little news coverage has been provided in the West about the dangerous situation in Somalia today. The coverage has been sporadic, only making headlines when Somali pirates have attacked freighters and tankers.

I attribute the lack of the United States’ interest in Somalia to its raid there in 1993, when 18 soldiers and two Black Hawk helicopters were lost. At the time, U.S. troops were in Somalia to try to capture powerful Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid from his stronghold in Mogadishu and take him to a ship anchored off the nearby coast. This operation is often remembered as a tragic fiasco. Millions of Americans still remember watching the body of a dead U.S. soldier being dragged through the streets on television. This tragic incident and the U.S. involvement in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, is enough reason for many Capitol Hill politicians to avoid US engagement in the war-torn country. Yet, it’s only a matter of time before al-Shabab takes over the capital and establishes a Taliban-like government, imposing its rule throughout the land.

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Today, 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan. However, one renegade pastor of a church with fewer than 50 members, Rev. Terry Jones, has cast a shadow on their festivities. For the past several weeks, the media has treated us to live theater of the absurd by amplifying a statement made by an unknown preacher from Gainesville, Florida proposing to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

Jones has garnered worldwide news media attention these past few days and become an overnight influence

on American foreign policy and public image abroad, even receiving a call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and many pleas from world leaders and celebrities asking him not to go ahead with his plans. The President of the United States urged him to listen to "those better angels," and military leaders warned that his actions would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool.

The media frenzy over Jones' actions reached a peak this Thursday when he announced he was canceling, and later, that he had only "suspended" what he had dubbed International Burn a Quran Day.

The New York Times sent this "breaking news alert" to my Blackberry: "The pastor planning a burning of the Koran (Quran) on Saturday said he will cancel the event, adding he plans to meet with the Imam planning to build an Islamic center near ground zero."

Minutes later wire services competed to report that Rev. Jones had backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks saying that he was lied to with a promise to relocate the "Ground Zero Mosque" from its current location.

This story has also become headline news all over the Middle East, in an almost coordinated fashion to what is being reported on US networks. This means that viewers in the region were treated to viewing this story not only on CNN International and Fox News, but also on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and hundreds of regional and international television networks carried on satellite systems in the region. Television viewers in the Arab world had to endure endless coverage of the pastor from Florida, coupled with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero. Making the matter worse, this happened during the month of Ramadan, the biggest time for watching television in the Arab world, akin to the sweeps season in the United States. This could not have happened at a worse time!

Will Jones set Islam's holy book on fire? Will there be copy-cats? It does not matter.

To millions of Muslims across the globe, the mere thought of such a thing happening is repulsive. If the satanic ritual (as an Egyptian Sheikh has described it) does not occur, then that's because the pastor from Florida has been under intense pressure to give it up. Furthermore, the controversy over the Islamic center in lower Manhattan is not going to disappear anytime soon. Ramadan has been tainted by Islamophobia over the building of a mosque, and Eid has been hijacked by one bigot. The media has created a monster.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post

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Direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis are scheduled to commence in Washington on September 2, a decade after the last real final-status talks, and nearly two years after the last direct talks. Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu will come face to face for dinner and talks in Washington as guests of President Obama after 18 months of shuttle diplomacy and indirect "proximity talks" headed by Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell.

President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, along with Tony Blair, the special representative of the Middle East Quartet are also due to join the inaugural session in Washington.

While much hope has been placed on these

talks culminating in an agreement within a year, most Palestinians and Israelis remain skeptical of their success. More importantly, hopes and expectations have been inflated in some media reports, adding confusion and creating myths about what might turn up only to be yet another photo op in DC.

Here are some of the myths:

Myth No.1- They're not talking

Although Abbas and Netanyahu have not sat face to face for the past eighteen months, contacts and cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government have not ceased on several fronts, most notably in commerce and security.

Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, spoke at the Herzliya Conference in February alongside Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at a time when his boss, President Mahmoud Abbas was insisting on a

total halt to settlement construction before peace talks could resume. Also, Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces senior officials have made several visits to Ramallah for meetings with senior PA officials and members of the Palestinian security services. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin recently spent a day in the West Bank city of Jenin as a guest of the Palestinian Authority's security service.

This is Diskin's second visit of this kind to Palestinian Authority territory in recent months, the aim of which is to coordinate security ties between Israel and the PA. The first visit was to Ramallah.

Myth No. 2- Settlement Freeze

Settlement construction is "business as usual" in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Although a few projects were pushed back, construction on existing projects continues unabated. Close to half a million Israeli Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. More importantly, settlers have accelerated their activities taking over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, in Arab neighborhoods in Sheikh Jarrah, Shu'fat, and Silwan. Furthermore, in 2010, more than 240 Palestinian homes have been destroyed in Area C of the West Bank compared to 182 in all of 2009.

Myth No. 3- Security Fears

Israel's concern over security in the West Bank is exaggerated. Today the Palestinian Authority is policing the West Bank on behalf of the IDF. Very few Israeli deaths, only two in 2010, have been registered due to attacks in the West Bank. In comparison, far more Palestinians have been killed and injured by settlers and the IDF in 2010. Rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have also subsided. Israel's main security concern these days is Iran.

"The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East and the whole world," Netanyahu said in November 2009, repeating variations on this statement on several occasions.

Myth No. 4- Abbas & Netanyahu can deliver peace

Neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor President Abbas have the mandate to deliver a peace agreement. Netanyahu would face strident opposition from within his Likud party and fierce opposition from his own foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who has the ability and influence to unravel his fragile coalition.

Abbas also faces a complex problem of legitimacy. His term as President has expired, and under his watch, Palestinian unity was fractured when Hamas managed to route out his forces from Gaza.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said recently that Abbas was too weak to stand up to Israel and negotiate a just deal at the talks in Washington.

"If the talks succeed they will succeed to Israeli standards and liquidate the Palestinian cause. They'll give us parts of 1967 lands. They'll draw the borders as they want and they'll confiscate our sovereignty," said Meshaal

Myth No. 5- No preconditions

Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted for many weeks that he was ready to come to the negotiating table in Washington, but without "preconditions." In fact both he and President Mahmoud Abbas have already announced preconditions, raising expectations and laying the groundwork for failure.

Among the preconditions laid out by Netanyahu for peace with the Palestinians is recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians consider this condition as a non-starter, instead they'd like to delve into sensitive areas such as the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied territory, the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the right of return, issues that will be difficult to overcome.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas has declared that he will withdraw from negotiations if settlement activity resumes. The settlement moratorium is due to expire on Sept. 26. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems unlikely to extend it.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post

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2010 could go down in history as the year of natural and environmental disasters. We’ve witnessed earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, wildfires and a drought in Russia, a devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and now one fifth of Pakistan is submerged under water due to floods leaving more than 20 million people without potable water, food, shelter and medicine.

The United Nations general secretary, Ban Ki-moon, called this latest disaster a “slow-motion tsunami,” and appealed for swift aid.

"Make no mistake, this is a global disaster," Ban said at the UN general assembly. "Pakistan is facing a slow-motion tsunami. Its destructive powers will accumulate and grow with time," he warned.

Relief agencies say the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Pakistan is greater than this year's earthquake in Haiti; however, relief for Pakistan may be a long time coming.

"Although governments have been coming forward with increasing generosity, the public response has not been the immediate outpouring of generosity that we've seen for Haiti and the tsunami five years ago," the U.N. Under Secretary John Holmes said.

According to a CBS news report, sixteen days after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, aid commitments totaled $1.4 billion. Sixteen days after Pakistan's floods began, promises added up to just $200 million.

Yet despite the heart-wrenching television images

broadcast across the globe showing massive destruction and enormous human suffering, the world has been slow to react to calls for aid. Why has Pakistan been forsaken?

The most common answer to the slow response is “donor fatigue.” Many believe that there have been too many disasters in one year, and donors have reached their limit in giving, especially since many still suffer from the effects of the financial crisis. Another factor has been a low death toll.  But Pakistan's tarnished image plays a major role, according to a few Pakistani Americans I’ve spoken to.

“Zardari’s government is corrupt,” said Ali Khan, a financial analyst from San Jose. “Many people do not believe that their contributions will reach the right people,” he added.

Another Pakistani American I’ve spoken to placed the blame for the slow response on the anti-Muslim sentiments sweeping the Western world.

Meanwhile, the United States has pledged an additional $60 million to the U.N. flood-relief effort in Pakistan, bringing its contribution to $150 million in a move designed to encourage other governments and private donors to boost their aid.

In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has pledged $124.29 million in aid for Pakistan’s flood relief campaign, surpassing the western economic giants - and Islamabad’s allies in the war against terror – according to Al Arabiya TV. The UAE has also been leading a massive relief campaign to transport food and medicine to flood-stricken remote areas in Pakistan. Oil-rich Kuwait however,  has been criticized for it’s meager $10 million contribution.

Arab media has given the crisis extensive coverage and has played a major role in creating awareness during the holy month of Ramadan, a month known for giving.

Weather forecasts indicate that there could be four more weeks of rain, which could exasperate the situation even further.

We at Link TV have a set up a page on our website to keep you updated with the news in Pakistan and provide you with a useful guide so that you too can contribute in some way in the saving and rebuilding of lives there.

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There are remarkably few positive things to say about Iraq today. The country seems to be in perpetual upheaval since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Dozens of people were killed across Iraq just days ahead of the start of the holy month of Ramadan, and more will probably lose their lives in the coming few days when insurgents typically step up their attacks. Yet the Obama administration has recently announced that the U.S. is "on target to end the combat mission." The U.S. government plans to withdraw its combat troops by the end of August and to remove all troops by the end of 2011.

But Iraq's most senior military officer, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, said that his forces, particularly the air force, were not ready to take over, cautioning that his security forces will not be able to secure the country until 2020.

The country has been facing many domestic challenges, such as a period of Sunni Arab insurgency, bloody attacks by al-Qaeda, confrontations with al-Sadr militias, and the ongoing tensions between various political factions; however, it's Iraq's vulnerability to neighboring countries that Zebari was alluding to.

"If America withdraws its forces and one of the neighboring countries causes problems, then we're going to have a problem," Zebari said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian last week,
Saddam Hussein's former deputy Tareq Aziz warned about a U.S. withdrawal and accused Barack Obama of "leaving Iraq to the wolves". Indeed, and even with the presence of 64,000 US troops in Iraq, both Turkish and Iranian troops have recently crossed Iraq's northern border in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. Last December, Iranian troops occupied an Iraqi oil well in the south, triggering popular outrage but little action from the Iraqi government.

It's worth mentioning that not everyone agrees with Zebari. A couple of days before his cautioning statement, General Ali Ghaidan, the commander of all Iraqi ground forces, told reporters at a news conference that his troops are "100 per cent ready" to take over.

But will the U.S. actually withdraw from Iraq?

Not really. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops will remain in the country to train the Iraqi army and provide it with logistical support. If need be, they will be engaged in combat missions. Meanwhile, the number of private contractors working for the U.S. in Iraq in sectors such as security, communications, utilities, and commerce is estimated at 100,000. This number is likely to increase significantly once the "combat forces" are gone, especially in the security sector.

Move on US Marines, here come Xe Services (better known as Blackwater)!

Meanwhile, the political stalemate between Nouri el- Maliki and Iyad Allawi if not resolved might soon trigger a major political upheaval, something that may cause the Iraqi government with its fragile coalitions to collapse; the last thing the Obama administration needs while withdrawing the troops.

It took 21 days for the U.S. armed forces to reach Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein, but leaving Iraq is proving to be more complicated than invading it.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post
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The US treasury has recently expanded its blacklist on Iran to include another state-controlled bank, a shipping line, and more of its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The latest move is the first step by the US in implementing new restrictions adopted by the UN Security Council last week. The Treasury also took a separate step to squeeze Iran's energy sector by identifying some 20 petroleum and petrochemical companies as being under Iranian government control--an action that puts them off limits to U.S. businesses under a general trade embargo.

On Wednesday, Iran announced that it will build four new reactors to expand its atomic research. It denies Western allegations that it is seeking atomic weapons, insisting that it only wants to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In a televised speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed to force the West to "sit at the negotiating table like a polite child" before agreeing to further talks, adding that Iran will not make "one iota of concessions."

The Obama administration says the goal of the punitive measures is to deter Tehran from its nuclear-enrichment program. Will these sanctions further that goal? Not really.

Lest we forget, the sanctions that were passed at the UN have been watered down during negotiations with Russia and China rendering them practically ineffective. The additional sanctions by the US and the ones planned by the EU have no crippling effect on Iran's economy and do not entail an oil embargo. Sanctions can be effective only if they threaten the regime's survival, and since these sanctions are all based on Iran's nuclear energy program and not human rights, they remain ineffective. The vast majority of Iranians support their government's nuclear-enrichment policies.

Additional sanctions will most likely come at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable, as they did in Iraq from August 1991 through March 1998.

"[The sanctions] will most probably lead to the suffering of the people of Iran and will play into the hands of people on all sides who do not want dialogue to prevail," according to the Brazilian ambassador to the UN, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti. Brazil, along with Turkey, voted against the draft resolution of the UN Security Council to impose new sanctions against Iran.

Furthermore, the sanctions would allow Tehran to blame outsiders for its economic woes. In fact, the sanctions will do Iran a favor that the Iranian government can't do for itself.

As for making a dent in Iran's import- export traffic of energy products, the sanctions will have little effect. Turkey has indicated that it plans to increase its imports of natural gas from Iran. Also, according to The Wall Street Journal, oil traders and oil industry analysts say Iran will have little trouble finding other gasoline supplies in the Persian Gulf, where a black market in fuel products thrives, even if Washington passes measures that would penalize firms or individuals with business in the U.S. that supply gasoline to Iran.

Capt. Mousa Murad, general manager of the United Arab Emirates' Port of Fujairah, says gasoline sanctions will likely give a lift to a thriving black-market fuel trade in the Gulf. The region has no shortage of suppliers, he says, who will continue to hide gasoline shipments to Iran because "prices will go up two times, three times."

What options does the US have?

Those who are anxious to stop Iran's nuclear program keep reminding us that the "military option is still on the table." For years, the US has tried to stop India and Pakistan from joining the nuclear club and briefly turned off aid to them. Today, it works secretly with Pakistan to secure its arsenal and has signed a treaty with India permitting it to buy nuclear material. The Unites States option might be no option.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post
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