Compressed linkage

* Which way will Lebanon go next? The CS Monitor reports on the rapidly evolving situation in that Middle Eastern country following the re-appointment of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Also, the Washington Post reports that the US is dropping the hammer on Syria, warning that it faces "total political and economic isolation" if the withdrawal from Lebanon is not swift and complete.

* In what would be a surprising move, the NY Times reported yesterday that the US was ready to admit Hezbollah has a "role to play" in Lebanon's political structure. Scott McClellan has since denied this to be the case. Oh, and Israel? Shudup already, lest your occupation forces get brought up in the discussion.

* "The claim that democracy is on the march in the Middle East is a fraud," avers the Guardian's Seumas Milne. "It is not democracy, but the US military, that is on the march."

* "George W. Bush likes to say that democracy has the power to defeat tyranny," writes Naomi Klein in The Nation. "He's right, and that's precisely why it is so very dangerous for history's most powerful emancipatory idea to be bundled into an empty marketing exercise."

* "The Pentagon's widest-ranging examination of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention facilities has concluded that there was no deliberate high-level policy that led to numerous cases of mistreatment, and instead blames inept leadership at low levels and confusion over changing interrogation rules," reports the Washington Post. Obviously, the investigation is a whitewash.

* Jim Lobe says recent moves, most notably Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the UN, show unilateralism to be back in vogue in Washington.

* Are We in World War IV? Tom Engelhardt probes the neocon line that GWOT = WWIV.

* The Washington Post confirms that the US is willing to join Europe in negotiations that will offer economic incentives for Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions. Most important, however, is what's mentioned in the last paragraph of the Post story: "Bush's willingness to go along with incentives of any kind stems from a desire to gather support for later punitive action, assuming the incentives do not work, and to present a united front before the Security Council." Gosh, that sounds familiar.

* In a Foreign Affairs article that approves of more aggressive diplomatic efforts towards Iran, Ken "An Invasion Is Definitely Not A Good Idea This Time Around" Pollack and Ray Takeyh urge the Bush administration to "force Tehran to confront a painful choice: either nuclear weapons or economic health. Painting Tehran's alternatives so starkly will require dramatically raising both the returns it would gain for compliance and the price it would pay for defiance."

* The International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security in Madrid has concluded on the first anniversary of "3/11."

* With the one-year anniversary of Aristide's removal having just passed, Aaron Maté recounts his recent trip to Haiti, where he found "that there has been not just a coup against the President, but a purge of the mass-based Lavalas party that elected him." As a testament to the violence that plagues the country, Maté points to an "exhaustive and sadly overlooked study" by the University of Miami’s Center for Human Rights, which "found that 'the police routinely enter [poor neighborhoods] to conduct operations which are often murderous attacks, often with firepower support from the UN Civil Police and Peacekeeping forces,' leaving victims that 'prefer to die at home untreated rather than risk arrest at the hospital.'"

* A suit filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against a variety of American chemical companies has been dismissed by an American judge, confirming yet again the axiom that there are worthy and unworthy victims.

* Reporting for Al Jazeera, Adam Porter writes that a new US government sponsored study, which he says marks a "landmark in the current oil debate," admits that the only uncertainty about "peak oil" is when it will arrive. The report, "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management," makes several recommendations for dealing with the threat of dwindling oil supplies and concedes that "the world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

* Picking up where Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler left off, Dubya's pal Karen Hughes is going to be heading up American propaganda public diplomacy efforts abroad.