Topic: Claude Salhani

Claude Salhani, a former photographer, writer and editor with United Press International who covered Lebanon's civil war and many other turbulent events in the Middle East, has died at age 70.

Pundits or false prophets? Many are those who are only too happy to offer the White House their "expert views" on foreign policies, yet what they advise is not necessarily in the interest of the United States.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, legendary journalist and UPI editor at large, died Sunday in Washington, DC. He was 88.

If the people of the Middle East could vote in the U.S. presidential elections, chances are they would have voted in favor of Sen. Barack Obama over his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, or his political opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain. But that was last week. In the short span of a few days, much has changed in the delicate juggling act that ties American domestic politicking to the more Machiavellian politics of the Levant, the lands of Arabia and of the Persians.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," reads part of an inscription on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, once the gateway to the New World.

Now that the "engagement announcement" has been made public, it remains to be seen if Israel and Syria will have the courage to go through with their rapprochement and if Damascus and Jerusalem will say "yes" to end the state of war that exists between their two countries and proceed to consummate the peace treaty.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to resign by the end of this year if no agreement was reached with the Israelis over the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Lebanon has always been a country that has stood out from the rest of the Middle East for a number of reasons -- primarily because Lebanon consistently has been a country of many contradictions.

When a group placed on the U.S. terrorist list changes its policy, getting off the list becomes complicated: Such is the case with the Mujahadin-e-Khalq.

When Yasser Arafat addressed the United Nations in 1974, he said he came bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Today, nuclear deterrence has replaced the gun.