2007 NOT PROMISING FOR MIDDLE EAST
By H. Chaqrian

AZG Armenian Daily
10/01/2008

Regional

Political and Military Tensions Expected to Grow in 2008

The political processes of 2007 caused escalation of tension in various
regions of the world, especially in Middle East and Central Asia. The
complications in our region were caused by chaos in Iraq, the isolation
of Gaza district because of "Hamas"-"Fat’h" struggle in Palestine,
destabilization in Lebanon, and, of course, the international pressure
upon Iran and Syria.

In result of the struggle between Shiites and Sunnites, artificially
provoked after the war against Iraq, the escalating terrorism, the
undiscovered murders and kidnappings, over 1,200 million people were
killed in Iraq, mainly representatives of local intellectual circles.

Although Iraq was occupied by American armed forces, which implies
the responsibility of the US authorities for the chaos in the country,
the current government of Iraq proposed the United States to prolong
the term of military presence in their country. Therefore, 2008 can
hardly be promising for the people of Iraq.

The same thing evidently can be said about Palestine, especially about
Gaza district, which remains under the domination of "Hamas". It
is expected that Gaza’s isolation from Jordan and the outer world
in general shall aggravate in 2008. Naturally, Israel will have the
opportunity of taking "punitive measures" against both the peaceful
population and "Hamas" militants.

Referring to "Fath" and its factual leader, head of the Palestinian
autonomy Mahmoud Abbas, an agreement of recommencing Israel-Palestine
peace negotiations was signed with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert in Annapolis, USA, November 27. Nevertheless on December 12,
the day appointed for the recommencement of peace negotiations, the
Government of Israel made decision to construct 300 more dwellings
in East Jerusalem.

Obviously, in such a situation, the sensibility of those negotiations
appears to be rather dubitable.

Thus, the main result of the Annapolis conference on Middle East was
the improvement of the international image of Israel.

After the war against Lebanon and deployment of international
peacemaking forces in that country, Lebanon ceased being considered
a part of the Arabic world. Lebanon came into the control of
international structures, which brought forth intensification of
controversies between Fuad authorities and "Hezbollah". The latter,
in its turn, resulted in polarization of the Lebanese society.

All the recent international conferences and other kinds of discussions
of the Middle East issue proved to be useless, and the destabilization
of the situation in the region seems to grow. It becomes evident
that the USA and the EU are equally interested in aggravating the
difficulties in Middle East.