Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr pulls his ministers out of Iraq's cabinet to press for a timetable for US withdrawal.Sounds familiar, I wonder where I've seen it before..
Anyone familiar with the past two years of Lebanese politics would never claim, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did in Damascus last week, that "the road to Damascus is a road to peace." Her assertion must have seemed especially naive to the people of Lebanon, where the list of the slain reads like a "Who's Who" of Syria's most vocal and effective opponents.
Unfortunately, foreign bigwigs come to town, their domestic calculations in hand; then they leave, and we're left picking up the pieces.More from Anton Efendi who also points out editorials with a similar point.
Syria's leaders, long shunned by fellow Arabs as well as Westerners, seem suddenly back in fashion... President Bashar Assad's relations with the governments of neighbouring Turkey and Iraq have warmed. He has strengthened Syria's long-standing alliance with Iran, yet seems also to have reconciled with the region's rival heavyweight, Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah greeted him in person last week at the airport of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on his arrival for an Arab summit whose next venue is to be Syria. Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-affairs head, had soothing words for Mr Assad on a recent visit. This week, defying President Bush's ban on high-level contacts, two American congressional delegations, one led by Nancy Pelosi, the top-ranking Democrat, took the road to Damascus.
Mr Assad may even get back into the swim of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, from which he has been largely excluded, thanks in part to his backing of Hamas's exiled leader, Khaled Meshal, whose haven is Damascus. The resuscitated Arab League peace plan of 2002 includes a demand that Syria be given back the Golan Heights in return for peace with Israel. And there is talk within the newly-formed Arab Quartet of moderate states (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that Syria should be included, partly to detach it from its ally, Iran.
The Council of Maronite Bishops on Wednesday urged parliament to practice its constitutional and national role.
It also said that presidential elections should be held on time and considered any attempt to prevent quorum an anti-constitutional measure.
The statement issued after the Bishops’ monthly meeting stressed on the importance of implementing U.N. Security Council Resolutions concerning Lebanon, including the creation of an international tribunal to try suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination and related crimes.
What the moribund Israeli-Palestinian talks need most today is an emotional breakthrough. Another Arab declaration, just reaffirming the Abdullah initiative, won’t cut it. If King Abdullah wants to lead — and he has the integrity and credibility to do so — he needs to fly from the Riyadh summit to Jerusalem and deliver the offer personally to the Israeli peopleThen Friedman goes to the nuts and bolts of his "humble suggestion":
the Saudi king [should] make four stops. His first stop should be to Al Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There, he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aksa.Alright, I guess he is just an out-of-touch Western journalist.
[..]
From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal
[..]
From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran. Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative."
In what I think is a first in Egyptian political history, on Sunday 18 March, 102 opposition legislators began a boycott of parliament’s plenary sessions. The sessions are devoted to swiftly passing what the Mubarak regime is calling “amendments” to the 1971 constitution. In reality, the alterations augment executive powers and constitutionalise the exclusion of Mubarak’s challengers. Naturally, what gave the protest its heft was the presence of 88 Muslim Brother deputies, but equally significant was the active participation of Hamdeen Sabahy and Saad Abboud from the Karama party, noteworthy independents such as Gamal Zahran and Alaa Abdel Moneim, and maverick Wafdist Mohamed Abdel Haleem, among others. 
Under a blinding high noon sun, the deputies stood swaddled in black sashes protesting the “constitutional coup” and carried bright-yellow signs announcing the death of the constitution, the end of personal liberties, and the extinction of free elections. Some wore black ties in mourning. Ikhwan MP Mohsen Radi brandished the constitution and called out, “Here’s the constitution that the NDP wants to destroy.” 
As prominent deputies made fiery statements to an army of jostling reporters and cameramen, I couldn’t help pondering a couple of glaring ironies. First, Mubarak’s tampering with the constitution has transformed a flawed and musty document into a significant contract of basic rights worth defending. Second, the regime’s attack on the last vestiges of constitutional freedoms is unintentionally fostering coordination and collective action by the parliamentary opposition. For the past several days, independent deputies have been deliberating round the clock to weigh various courses of action, including collective resignation. Ultimately, that option was dropped because (a) lack of time to investigate the full legal and political ramifications of such a momentous decision, (b) the regime would like nothing more than to be rid of the high percentage of opposition deputies and to engineer new, better controlled elections, and (c) the boycott proposal was floated by a dubious source: the revolting and utterly untrustworthy Mustafa Bakri, State Security’s point man in parliament (who of course was not among the 102 boycotters). 
Recall their stand against the extension of emergency rule last spring, their participation in the pro-judges’ protests, and their tireless challenges to Fathi Sorour. If coordination between them and other opposition deputies continues on a variety of issues, then we may have to start taking parliament seriously. 
Parliament security guards, administrative staff, and buffet personnel gaped in awe at the independent deputies and the media menagerie they attracted, recognising that they had done something new and important. Passers-by lingered to stare and listen. An elderly woman smiled and wondered out loud to no one in particular, “Today is your day. Is this going to be on television?”
This here is Hussein Abdel Hafeez. He was on his daily round of errands in government buildings when he saw the colourful protest, so he decided to watch what’s going on. He had no idea what the protest was about and didn’t care that much, but he did care that it took him entire days to get basic services from the government bureaucracy. He said the MPs looked like good people who would listen to ordinary people’s problems, so he joined in to support them in whatever it is they’re demanding. 
But I also can’t stop wondering when and how the People’s Assembly will turn into a real institution. When will parliament make a real claim to represent the people and check the executive branch? I have no idea, but I’d bet on the role of independent MPs, regardless of their political affiliation. Their burgeoning collective action, the linkages they forge with constituents, and their ability to annoy and perturb the ruling regime and break up its power monopoly are the real building blocks of representative democracy. 
