Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Realism from the Middle East

King Abdullah II of Jordan gets it. If any country, or any person, in the world has their pulse on the overall situation in the middle east (by absolute geographic necessity), it's Abdullah and Jordan.

Jordan's King: Iraq Elections Impossible:

PARIS - Jordan's King Abdullah II said in an interview published Tuesday that if elections are held in Iraq amid the current violence, extremists will be the victors, and he warned that he sees no chance for improvement in Iraq in the short term.

Abdullah, who met with President Jacques Chirac in Paris on Tuesday, told the daily Le Figaro that it 'seems impossible to organize indisputable elections in the chaos of Iraq today,' but he noted that Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is determined to go ahead with the vote, scheduled for late January.

'If elections take place in the current disorder, the best organized faction will be the extremists,' Abdullah said. 'The results will reflect this advantage of the extremists. In such a scenario, there will be no chance that the situation gets better.' ...