1. Why did Israel choose to retain the Golan Heights, instead of returning the land?
Israel claims that they are retaining the lands in order to create a buffer zone so that rockets fired by groups such as Hezbollah at Israel will not reach Israeli land. Lebanon continues to demand the land back and claims that Israel has kicked Lebanese people out of the lands and states that Israel is interested in expanding and taking over more land. Also after taking over the lands Israel has established settlements for Israelis in the Golan Heights region.
2. Why did the terrorist acts at Munich occur?
These acts were carried out by an Islamist terrorist group named Black September at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany. This group had ties to Fatah which is a political party in Palestine. Black September wanted to draw global attention to their struggle with Israel. They were radicals and acted in anger against Israel by capturing Israeli Olympians, holding them captive, and eventually killing them.
On another note last night the second of three Presidential debates took place between Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain. At the town hall debate, the focus seemed to be the economy which is by far the biggest problem in America today. In spite of this there were some questions about foreign policy. Of the four foreign policy questions three of them pertained with the Middle East. The first was about Iraq in which McCain continued to support the troop surge. He stated that Obama was unwilling to admit the troop surge was working. Unlike Obama who wants to set up a sixteen month withdrawal plan, McCain does not want to set a timetable. He continued to repeat that he would bring the troops back in victory and claimed that Obama had already accepted defeat. Obama struck back by stating that his initial judgment about not entering Iraq was the correct one and that McCain’s decision making cannot be trusted as he supported the beginning of the war.
The next question pertained with Iran and the nuclear issue. McCain answered first and stated that although he would love to solve the issue diplomatically, the military option was still on the table. He criticized Obama for wanting to hold direct talks with the Iranians without preconditions. McCain is in support for strong sanctions against Iran and has proposed that the US should develop a league of Democracies in order to pass harsher sanctions. Obama defended his idea of holding direct talks with Iran by presenting how the US had held talks with the USSR during the Cold War which in the end led to the fall of the Soviet Union and peace. Obama also believe that the military option should remain on the table, but only as a very last resort. On both Iraq and Iran, Obama’s plans seem to be much more realist, but wait for my next post for a more in depth description of the candidates stances as well as the one I see to be best fitting for America.
2 comments:
Kia,
I thought that the Presidential Debate was rather uninteresting, since both candidates seemed to reiterate the foundations of not only their foreign policy, but also their economic policy. Do you think that the candidates were repetitive? What did you think about the debate? Finally, do the candidates agree on anything related to the Middle East and foreign policy?
Tommy
Kia,
It seems to me that McCain wants to continue to use military force in the Middle East. However, Obama wants to use other methods in order to gain the trust of other Middle East countries rather than relying solely on our armed forces. What do you think about that?
Revan
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