Senior U.S. officials in Baghdad weighing back-channel messages from Iran condemning the recent bloodshed

In the WSJ, here

"...The officials declined to identify the Iraqi go-betweens, but Iran previously has sent messages to the U.S. through Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who heads Iraq's largest Shiite political party.

....People familiar with the communications said the Iranian officials expressed alarm at the bloody fighting last month between Iraqi government forces and Shiite militants loyal to nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

.....The Iranians also told the U.S. they weren't in control of the Shiite fighters, these people said...."

Damascene Samir Taqi to handle Syrian talks on Israel

Haretz, here

Is an Iranian general the most powerful man in Iraq?

Strobel, Allam & Landay in McClatchy's, here

"Whether we like him (Suleimani) or not, whether Americans like him or not, whether Iraqis like him or not, he is the focal point of Iranian policy in Iraq," said a senior Iraqi official who asked not to be identified so he could speak freely. "The Quds Force have played it all, political, military, intelligence, economic. They are Iranian foreign policy in Iraq."

Iraqi and U.S. officials told McClatchy that Suleimani also has:

• Slipped into Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily fortified seat of the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi government, in April 2006 to try to orchestrate the selection of a new Iraqi prime minister. Iraqi officials said that audacious visit was Suleimani's only foray into the Green Zone; American officials said he may have been there more than once.

• Built powerful networks that gather intelligence on American and Iraqi military operations. Suleimani's network includes every senior staffer in Iran's embassy in Baghdad, beginning with the ambassador, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

• Trained and directed Shiite Muslim militias and given them cash and arms, including mortars and rockets fired at the U.S. Embassy and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, the sophisticated roadside bombs that have caused hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi casualties.

• 

"The Future of US-Syrian Relations" as translated by Walid Jumblatt

Jean Aziz alludes to Martin Indyk's hearing ...,in Al Akhbar, here

Brent Scowcroft Echoes Obama: We Need To Talk To Enemies

In the Huffington Post, here

"Absolutely," said Scowcroft, when asked by The Huffington Post whether he thought the next president should meet with the likes of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's hard to make things better if you don't talk."

Scowcroft, a former Air Force general who is widely considered to be one of the preeminent foreign policy minds in the United States, was appearing at an event with Henry Kissinger at Georgetown University. His take on U.S. diplomatic outreach comes as Obama's position -- to meet with our enemies even without preconditions -- has gotten the Illinois Democrat routinely criticized as naive and inexperienced from his Democratic and Republican rivals...."

"... If you’re Bashar Assad, why would you give up your alliance to the ascendant power in the Middle East...?"

Noah Pollack (the man who called Samantha Powers "an antisemite", argues that no matter what, Syria's interest lies with status quo... flipping Syria, he explains, brings nothing to Damascus, ...when some Washingtonians believe that a "cessation of hostilities from the US & Israel outweighs all of that", ......in Commentary, here

".... If you are Bashar Assad, you’re in the enviable position of being the only Arab ally of Iran, which you believe will soon be the greatest regional power, and a nuclear one. You were recently forced out of Lebanon, but your ally Hezbollah is still there, growing in power, ensuring your political influence today and your return in the future. You provide aid and safe haven to Hamas, which gives you a strong hand not only in thwarting America and Israel in the peace process, but in manipulating Palestinian violence....."

"Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism..."

Bradley Burston in Haaretz, here

Bahrain set to name Jewish woman as Ambassador to Washington ...

In Gulf News, via War&Piece, here

Iran to Give Nuclear Proposals to Russia

In Fars-English, news

The Syrians have been sold to the Americans as altogether "black"...How could Israel... stain itself by making peace with these devils?...

This is very good news. One can hear the string section warming up for the concert. This must enrage many in the US and Israel. Imagine the effrontery of the locals! Taking things into their own hands like this! Who do they think they are to do this?

The Syrians have been sold to the American people as altogether "black" in the usual Manichean construct. How could Israel, land of milk and honey stain itself by making peace with these human devils? Unthinkable!

Out there in Middle America (something like Middle Earth but with less cachet and more rust), there are going to be a lot of puzzled people if an Israeli-Syrian peace were to actually occur.

What about the purple thumbs?

Psst. That was Iraq.

It was? Oh well, one of those places. Pat Lang

U.S.-Syria: Who’s converting whom?

Former Asst. Secretary of Defense, Peter Rodman in MESH, here

(NOTICE the comments section: Michael Young + Eyal Zisser gang on CSIS's Jon Alterman in siding with the never learning hawks!)

"...........splitting Syria from Iran ...... The obstacle to actually accomplishing this strategic coup is that no one has figured out a way to do it consistently with other important strategic interests or without risk to other strategic interests of the United States.....

.........In other words, while our tough talking points were meant to ratchet up pressures, the Syrians spun the visits into relief from pressures........

.........Arab anger at Syria is a recurring phenomenon—usually short-lived. In recent years, however, given the growing threat from Iran, the unholy alliance between Syria and Iran is likely to remain a big issue in Syrian-Arab relations. We should not forget which side we have the bigger stake in.............

............The incident ('strike') probably has more immediate relevance to our present diplomacy with North Korea, but it is also a reminder of the potential dangers of a Syrian-Israeli conflict. Syria already possesses other forms of WMD if not nuclear weapons..........

Syrian policies have made it harder to visualize any kind of rapprochement.........Ultimately there will have to be a Syrian-Israeli peace settlement—everyone knows that—but it should be in a strategic context that strengthens the forces of moderation in the region rather than weakening them. Syria will be thinking strategically if it pursues a dialogue with Israel; so should we."

"Operation Orchard": More on that Syrian 'reactor'...

LauraRosen in MoJo, here

".... calling the State Department’s diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang "feckless, " noted hawk, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, wrote in a Wall Street Journal oped August 31, 2007 – intriguingly precisely one week before the Israeli Air Force operation....

“Based on my own ‘uninformed’ perspective, the big question is not whether the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor, but whether it was actually close to becoming operational (which raises questions about the timing of the strike) and the almost total absence of any evidence of what kind of plans the Syrians may have had for any plutonium that might have been produced at the plant if and when it went into operation,” said former US National Security Council official Gary Sick. “Although some will fix on the anomalies to cast doubt on the very existence of such a project, the real debate in policy circles (including the Congress) is likely to focus on whether it was really as far along as claimed and whether the same thing could have been accomplished by publicizing the photographic evidence and insisting that the IAEA be permitted to inspect the site.”

Israel would announce that it is "well aware of the price it would have to pay at the end of talks" ...

Barak Ravid in Haaretz, here

"....The Turks are taking both sides' stances into consideration and trying to come up with a formula that would bring them to the negotiating table," the government source said. "The key issue now is to find a solution that would satisfy Syria's demand that Israel commit to a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which at the moment is impeding progress." The source said Israel is considering an alternative, in the form of a public announcement indicating that Israel is be "well aware of the price it would have to pay at the end of talks."

McCain's 'Schizophrenic' Foreign Policy ..

Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, here

".... The neoconservative vision within the speech (McCain's) is essentially an affirmation of ideology. Not only does it declare war on Russia and China, it places the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies. It proposes a League of Democracies, which would presumably play the role that the United Nations now does, except that all nondemocracies would be cast outside the pale......

"......McCain appears to think that he can magically unite the two main strands in the Republican foreign-policy establishment. But he can't. This is not about personalities but about two philosophically divergent views of international affairs. Put together, they will produce infighting and incoherence. We have seen this movie before. We have watched an American president unable to choose between his ideologically driven vice president and his pragmatic secretary of State—and the result was the catastrophe of George W. Bush's first term. Twenty-five years earlier, we watched another president who believed that he could encompass the entire spectrum of foreign policy. He, too, gave speeches that were drafted by advisers with divergent world views: in that case, Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski. It led to the paralyzing internal battles of the Carter years. Does John McCain want to try this experiment one more time?"

Israel: UNIFIL is hiding information about Hezbollah from Security Council

In HAARETZ, here

"...The Israel Defense Forces and the Foreign Ministry are reportedly very angry about UNIFIL's actions in recent months, especially about the fact that its commander, Major General Claudio Graziano, is said to be leniently interpreting his mission, as assigned by Security Council Resolution 1701, passed at the end of the Second Lebanon War...."

Baghdad Green Zone blasted under cover of storm

Reuters

Will U. S. Policy in Lebanon and the Middle East Ever Change? (Part III)

Franklin Lamb, in the final (part III) instalment in Counterpunch, here

...Meanwhile, a Day in the life of Afghanistan's President ....

Afghan security members escaping from an attack against President Hamid Karzai near the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday

Israelis wonder: Do they have to hear 'it' from Assad?

Zvi Bar'el in Haaretz, here and Qatar's Al Watan, here

"..."Olmert's silence" was so successful that the Syrian-Turkish disclosures on Israel's position raised only questions concerning Syria: Why now? What does Assad gain from this? Is Assad serious? Can he deliver? As if Israel is the one that for years has stood on the border in the Golan Heights, waving peace offers while the Syrians have kept silent. Assad's speeches and interviews to the international media about his desire for peace talks with Israel were forgotten...."

Hussein Malla/Associated Press

In tow with the Administration, UK says British hostages held inside Iran by IRG...

... and when it rains it pours ..... Sunday Times, here

"....If confirmed, the involvement of Revolutionary Guards would be seen as evidence that senior figures in the Iranian government had backed the decision to hold them in the country.

However, British officials said that while there had been rumours that the five were in Iran, they had seen no evidence to support the idea...."