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Article: Filling Washington's Middle East policy gap with fudge: there are more questions than answers about 2007. Most are about Iraq, about which President Bush has to make some tough decisions.(THE LAST WORD)
- Article from:
- MEED Middle East Economic Digest
- Article date:
- January 5, 2007
- Author:
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The only good thing about what looked like the lynching of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussain is that it happened on 30 December. This meant it was a bad end to 2006 rather than a depressing start to 2007.
But it ensured that Iraq remained in everyone's minds during the celebrations to mark the passing of, on balance, a good year for the Middle East. Lebanon was vandalised in Israel's Hizbollah war, violence worsened in Iraq and the Darfur humanitarian crisis deepened. But for most of the region's people, 2006 was a year of rising incomes as economic growth hit its highest level for more than a quarter of a century.
OPEC's December decision for more ...