The World
Israelis Vote for a Pullback (Maybe)
Forming a coalition government to confirm him as Israel's prime minister shouldn't be much of a problem for Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima (Forward) party finished first in Tuesday's election. But since Kadima fell short of the anticipated landslide victory, the problem for Olmert waits down the road, when he will need government backing to carry out his historic plan to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
Olmert, 60, acting prime minister and Kadima standard bearer since Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke, sought a mandate for his "consolidation" plan to remove Israeli settlers and soldiers from perhaps 90 percent of the West Bank. He didn't get it. While pro-consolidation parties of the left did much better than pro-settlement parties of the right, a bloc of special-interest factions in the middle now holds the balance of power. The new Pensioners Party and old ultra-Orthodox parties are eager to join an Olmert government and share the spoils; whether they will stay on for the traumatic ordeal of uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish settlers--which Olmert has promised by 2010--is anyone's guess.
Carrying off such an endeavor will require extraordinary leadership, the kind Sharon displayed over the nearly two-year process of getting Israel out of the Gaza Strip. This election showed that Olmert, for now at least, is no Sharon. Kadima, forecast a week before the election to win nearly 40 of 120 Knesset seats, finished with 29. And what was billed as a watershed vote on Israel's territorial future drew what Israelis regard as lackluster (63 percent) voter turnout. Facing a long, grueling political journey, the determined but uninspiring Olmert finds himself starting out in a bit of a hole.
A Soft Slap by the Security Council
It was supposed to be a snap. But when the U.N. Security Council got down to formally warning Iran off its defiant resumption of nuclear work, the only thing snapping was the tempers of diplomats who saw an opportunity to deliver a strong rebuke debated, delayed, and then drained of most of its punch. It took three weeks to issue a nonbinding presidential statement on behalf of the 15-member council. The statement turned out to be weaker than the demands already issued by the board of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, the body charged with monitoring Iran's nuclear activities.
Britain, France, and most of the rest of the Security Council sided with the Bush administration in urging a tougher statement; Russia and China pushed back--questioning whether the council should even take up Iran's nuclear ambitions. With the statement requiring unanimity, Moscow watered it down. The concessions included pulling the IAEA back into the issue, lengthening the period (to 30 days) by which time Iran is supposed to stop preparing to enrich uranium, and stripping out a reference to Iran posing a "threat to international peace."
The top U.S. envoy to the U.N., John Bolton, gamely argued that just getting a consensus statement shows that the Iran file is now the Security Council's to handle--an outcome Iran long resisted. But with a brusque rebuff last week from Tehran, few expect a quick breakthrough. Bolton spoke of revisiting the issue "on the 31st day." Then what? Predicts one European diplomat, "The Russians will string it out."
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