Iran And Iraq

Turkey envisions itself as a Middle East power, a dynamic Islamic democracy with a thriving economy that can help guide the region through the turmoil of the "Arab Spring. " But it has stumbled in its efforts to stop the violence and repression in its neighbor and onetime ally Syria. Although Turkish officials have harshly criticized President Bashar Assad's response to a yearlong uprising that is increasingly taking on the character of a civil war, they have not budged the Syrian leader.

With the possibility of a confrontation looming with Iran, one historical example that should command American attention in its hour of decision - but is being neglected - is the bloody conflict that Iran fought against Iraq from 1980 to 1988. It is worth recalling the fierceness of that struggle to gain some appreciation of the enormity of any decision by Washington to go to war with Iran, for it may foretell what Tehran is capable of doing when it feels its Islamic Revolution is at stake.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late deposed shah of Iran, predicted in an interview published Thursday that reconciliation between Iran and Iraq would create a "Machiavellian couple" and "destabilize the Middle East."

Turkey envisions itself as a Middle East power, a dynamic Islamic democracy with a thriving economy that can help guide the region through the turmoil of the "Arab Spring. " But it has stumbled in its efforts to stop the violence and repression in its neighbor and onetime ally Syria. Although Turkish officials have harshly criticized President Bashar Assad's response to a yearlong uprising that is increasingly taking on the character of a civil war, they have not budged the Syrian leader.

The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq resumed direct peace talks, but they appeared no closer to a permanent truce than when negotiations began eight months ago. Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, leaving after 2 1/2 hours of talks in Geneva with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, said the meeting brought only a reiteration of clashing positions. Progress continues to be stalled over Iran's demand for a full withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Iran and Iraq's insistence on early dredging of the Shatt al Arab waterway, its only outlet to the sea. The talks were chaired by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

Four people, including a 22-year-old woman, were hanged today, provoking fresh calls from church and civil rights groups for an end to the death penalty. A Justice Ministry spokesman said the four, all convicted murderers, were sent to the gallows inside Pretoria Central Prison at dawn. It was the first execution of a woman for more than two years in South Africa, which the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International says has the world's third highest official execution rate after Iran and Iraq.

All sick and wounded prisoners of the Persian Gulf War will be home by the end of the year under an agreement signed today, the only tangible result of two weeks of intensive peace talks between Iran and Iraq. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the deal to swap all such prisoners between Nov. 20 and Dec. 31. The accord, negotiated by the two rivals directly with the Red Cross, was announced hours after U.N.

The time has come for Congress to seize the initiative and enact the War Powers Resolution. How many more times must we watch our servicemen be put in danger by a President who has no clear cut foreign policy goal in the area? Congress has a moral and legal obligation to keep the President in check when he sends Americans into a situation where U.S. intervention is not presenting a solution to the problem at hand--the ending of the war between Iran and Iraq. JOHN F. MOSKAL Newport Beach

The presidents of Iran and Iraq visited troops along the battlefront as an unofficial truce held for a seventh day Sunday and an advance team of a U.N. observer force began surveying the border. Iran's official Tehran Radio said that President Ali Khamenei toured the southern sector of the war front with Iraq and warned Iranian soldiers of "the need to stay alert."

Iran and Iraq on Saturday reported heavy fighting on their south-central war front near the border town of Fuka, which Iraq said it entered last week. Iran's national news agency, in broadcasts monitored in Bahrain, said Iranian forces launched a raid overnight near Fuka during heavy rain, killing 1,700 enemy troops and destroying 30 tanks before making a successful withdrawal. It said the rain paralyzed Iraq's ability to counter the drive.

Francoise Demulder, 61, a French photojournalist who was the first woman to win the World Press Photo of the Year award, died Wednesday of a heart attack at a hospital near Paris, journalist Genevieve Lamouroux, a longtime friend, told the Associated Press. She had been in declining health for several years, battling cancer. Demulder, who covered many of the major conflicts of the late 20th century, won praise for a striking black-and-white photograph of a Palestinian woman raising her hands at a masked militiaman in Beirut's war-ravaged La Quarantaine district.

President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy saluted the thaw in the French-American relationship on Wednesday, finding common ground on Afghanistan and Iran -- two of the most troublesome foreign-policy challenges -- and suggesting they even agreed on Iraq, the bete noire of Washington's dealings with Paris. On a wind-swept lawn of George Washington's Mount Vernon plantation, the two presidents gushed about each other and the improved state of U.S.

Former foes Iran and Iraq said Thursday that they would sign a military cooperation agreement that would include Iranian help in training Iraq's armed forces, despite likely U.S. opposition. The agreement marks a breakthrough in relations between the two countries, which fought a bitter 1980-88 war. And it comes in spite of repeated U.S. accusations that Shiite Muslim Iran has undermined security in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003. "It's a new chapter in our relations with Iraq.

A warehouse in southern Iraq found to contain hundreds of bodies appears to be a repatriation facility for the remains of soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, military investigators said Sunday. British troops discovered two tin structures full of bodies and coffins Saturday on Zubayr's northern outskirts, sparking speculation that the site was a torture and execution ground and mass morgue, possibly for opponents of President Saddam Hussein's regime.

The threat of stiff U.S. economic sanctions against China for continued pirating of American products will cast a long shadow on the coming debate in Congress over whether to extend China's most-favored-nation trading status for another year. Although there are indications that the Senate will support the extension, backing in the House is far less certain, with rancorous opposition gaining momentum and anti-China rhetoric in the U.S. reaching inflammatory new heights.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late deposed shah of Iran, predicted in an interview published Thursday that reconciliation between Iran and Iraq would create a "Machiavellian couple" and "destabilize the Middle East."

We must take every step to cease the hostilities in the Persian Gulf and be instrumental in establishment of a permanent and a just peace in that part of the world. People of Iran and Iraq have suffered enough. Let us not fuel the conflict; let us ship them badly needed medicines for the civilian war victims, and not act as merchants of death by selling weapons to either side. Let us apply sanctions against those governments that sell chemical weapons for destruction of people in any part of the world.

Four people, including a 22-year-old woman, were hanged today, provoking fresh calls from church and civil rights groups for an end to the death penalty. A Justice Ministry spokesman said the four, all convicted murderers, were sent to the gallows inside Pretoria Central Prison at dawn. It was the first execution of a woman for more than two years in South Africa, which the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International says has the world's third highest official execution rate after Iran and Iraq.

The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq resumed direct peace talks, but they appeared no closer to a permanent truce than when negotiations began eight months ago. Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, leaving after 2 1/2 hours of talks in Geneva with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Velayati, said the meeting brought only a reiteration of clashing positions. Progress continues to be stalled over Iran's demand for a full withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Iran and Iraq's insistence on early dredging of the Shatt al Arab waterway, its only outlet to the sea. The talks were chaired by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.