Saudi blogger Fouad has been in detention without charges for 90 days. He was expressing his views in this moderate New Middle East.

McCain, Kings, and Arab Dwarves:
Senator McCain has moved on from the safe streets of Baghdad to the mean streets of Jordan, where he met in Amman with little King Abdul de Jourdanie, the US Senate's most favorite monarch that is not a butterfly. Actually I shouldn't call him 'little king', that is a belittling term Nasser's Egyptian radio used to describe his father the late King Hussein. Of course Anwar Sadat outdid even Nasser: at one point he called all Arab leaders "a'qzam", dwarves. Maybe he was unto something.

Most Arab media saw the McCain visit for what it was: promoting his presidential campaign, in the US not in Iraq.

VP Dick Cheney is also in the Middle East, creating more traffic jams in Baghdad. But he had some good advice to give this time. He urged the Arab states to start opening embassies in Baghdad, a bit of wise advice which they may not be wise enough to heed anytime soon. It would be a good start, a must if they ever want to contain the Iranian influence they have been whining about. A clear cut case of put up or shut up..

Kirkuk Simmering:
Elaph quotes a Turkman politician from Kirkuk claiming that the main Kurdish parties have resettled about half a million Kurds in Kirkuk in preparation for a referendum on the city's future. The report also claims that US forces have armed 10,000 Sunni Arabs in the Kirkuk area, as part of the Awakening Councils. This last move, if true, does not seem like a smart thing to do. The politician claims that the apparent goal was to resist al-Qaeda, but the real goal may be to confront the Kurds in the future. Very likely they alo have their eyes on participation in any future sectarian civil war.

The referendum was postponed last year and is slated to be held before summer of this year. Sooner or later things will come to a boil in Kirkuk, with Arabs and Turks opposing returning the city to Kurdish control.

Vacancy at the Summit:
Looks like the next Arab Summit will be held in Syria as scheduled, The Syrians have invited everybody except the Clinton's kitchen sink, including Lebanon's part-time rump Prime Minister Fouad Saniora and apparently even Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The last one is odd, a first for Arab summits, since Iran is not a member of the Arab League- it is not even an Arab country. Maybe host Bashar Assad worries that leaders and potentates of the Moderate New Middle East will gang up on him, and feels that he needs a friend? (Apparently he's never listened to James Taylor).

If they are now inviting to Arab summits all foreign leaders who have strong influence in the Arab world, why only Iran? Why leave out the others, the most important two? Why not complete the trifecta of powers moving the New Moderate Arab World by inviting Mr. Bush and Mr. Olmert?

Better yet, why not Dick Cheney and Tzipi Livni? She is better looking than Olmert (certainly better looking than Cheney). Besides, she is a powerful woman in her own right even outside the bedroom and therefore capable of making Arab potentates squirm, as powerful women outside the bedroom are wont to do.

And the Arab potentates won't even have to shake her hand or kiss her, just as they didn't do earlier at Annapolis. They do, however, have to announce their honorable intentions not to kiss or shake hands with her beforehand, just like they did before Annapolis. That would be the least gentlemanly thing to do under the circumstances- unless they want to be real gentlemany and kiss her anyway.
Cheers
Mohammed