SYRIA, IRAN


World media seem to trying to create a world war out of the triangle of America, Iran and Syria.

Two articles by Daniel Pipe's oraganisation (bear in mind it is pro-Israel: any facts open to verification).

Palestine for the Syrians?

• Syria's views on Greater Syria might explain why they are accused of stirring up trouble in the area
  

Syrian Reform : What Lies Beneath?

• corruption
  
• human rights - remember that massacre of a whole town in Papa Assad's day?
  
• where the oil wealth goes

At $55 a barrel, the 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) that Syrian fields produce gross $12 billion. Much of the money apparently disappears. In 2003, Syria's budget was just $8.4 billion, a figure that includes income generated from non-oil trade and taxation.

give a wealth of background information about Syria which has to be the starting point, surely?


.................................................................


CONDOLEEZZA RICE
This Newstatesman opinion byBonnie Greer on Condoleezza Rice suddenly made me think : Miss Rice is not an elected politician. are any Secretaries in the U.S. Government elected politicians? In Most Governments, including the British, French and German, Ministers are taken from the ranks of elected members of Parliament.

In practice it doesn't seem to matter if the personnel are top-notch and have been steeped in political practice for some time, as Miss Rice has. But it it ought to: America prides itself on its democracy. Placing people at the top of departments of State who are unelected seems strangley undemocratic.

Bonnie Greer talks of the possibility that Secretary Rice might fail for the first time in her life. Tthis is not a startlingly special observation since all politicians ultimately fail, as some sage old politician in the UK once observed. Up till now she has been, in the political arena a functionary.

I wonder what she will make of the Iraq and the Middle in the next 4 years?  ¶ Thursday, February 17, 2005