Word: syria
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Sunday's Lebanese parliamentary by-election was planned to strengthen the country's U.S.-backed government against the ongoing campaign by opposition forces allied with Iran and Syria to bring it down. But once the votes were counted, the election appears to have strengthened the hand of the opposition and highlighted the weakness of the current power arrangement in an increasingly divided country...
...Golan itself, which rises like a table of volcanic rock at the top of the Jordan Valley and the Sea of Galilee, there's little sense that anyone is even contemplating the possibility of packing up and leaving as a result of a land-peace swap with Syria. Nowhere is that more clear than in the town of Avneitan, home to some 23 families forcibly evacuated by the Israeli government from settlements in the Gaza strip in 2005. These Orthodox families believe that Jews have a divine mandate to live not just within the current borders of the Jewish state...
...while many Golanese Druze carry Israeli ID cards, most refuse to become Israeli citizens, either out of loyalty to Damascus, or out of concern that they might be seen as traitors if the territory is returned to Syria. Abu Shaheen and his neighbors also chafe under the restrictions of a closed border that cuts them off from family, friends and country. One of Abu Shaheen's daughters married a Syrian cousin and moved to the suburbs of Damascus earlier this year, and he doesn't know when he'll see her again...
...While a change in the Golan's political status doesn't appear to be on the current political horizon, there's always a chance that it could once again become a battlefield. Though Syria has repeatedly called for peace negotiations with Israel since the end of last year, it has also stepped up the rhetoric of resistance in the absence of peace. With outdated Soviet-era equipment, Syria's conventional army is no match Israel's top-of-the-line U.S. military technology. But the Syrians say they are changing their tactics and learning from the kind of asymmetrical guerrilla...
...general electorate in mind rather than the Democratic base. She insisted that the withdrawal from Iraq would have to be gradual. She refused to say she would commit U.S. ground troops to Darfur. And then, after Obama promised he would meet with the leaders of countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Cuba in his first year in office, she just leveled the guy. "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries," she said, explaining that you need to do the diplomatic groundwork first, find out what their intentions are. "I don't want...