Barack obama

The year is ending not with a successful US withdrawal from Iraq — as President Barack Obama claims — but with what amounts to a coup d'etat by the country's Shiite prime minister (and former ally of the US) Nouri al-Maliki. Less than 24 hours after the last US soldier left Iraq, the country's Sunni vice-president Tareq al-Hashemi was wanted on charges that he led death squads, in a case most observers think could reignite the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07. Violence in Iraq has subsided since 2006-07, when Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen killed thousands of civilians each month — but, without U.S. troops to act as a buffer, many Iraqis now fear a return to those days.

Things haven't been looking particularly good for the Obama 2012 campaign of late. Half the country disapproves of his performance so far, the economy's very weak and Mitt Romney's grip on the Republican nomination is tightening. And the last two sets of November elections have seen the electorate move towards the Republicans. In 2009, they took over the governorships Virgnia and New Jersey. Last year, they won control of House of Representatives and increased their numbers of Senators and Governors. But this year, the story's different: Democrats scored some important wins yesterday, making their prospects for 2012 that bit brighter.

Yesterday — as Pete pointed out earlier — the Obama administration filed criminal charges against two individuals, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, claiming that they worked with Mexican criminals and for the Iranian government on orders to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plot has met with denials from Tehran, which “categorically and in the strongest terms condemn this shameful allegation.”     But, if true, the plot would only be the latest in a long-standing feud between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The struggle between Riyadh and Tehran has become the Middle East’s central conflict, overshadowing even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The broad narrative of the Republican primaries has essentially been "the search for an alternative to Mitt Romney". And that search looks set to continue with another potential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, set against running for president. Romney has been the favourite to win the nomination pretty much since the 2008 election. But he does not generate much enthusiasm among the Republican base: only 14 per cent of Republicans have a "strongly favourable" view of him (according to Gallup) and he's polling at just 24 per cent: pretty low for such a well-known frontrunner. As a result, many in the Grand Old Party have been looking elsewhere.

After a hiatus, the Middle East Peace Process is about to return to the international stage. The Palestinians are pushing at the UN for recognition. Nobody knows yet what they will actually ask for: full statehood or just upgrading their UN status to "non-member". But, whatever the language of the resolution, the issue will be contentious. By some estimates, 126 states are poised to back the Palestinian request, including France, India, Brazil, Spain. The US will not support a Palestinian move, nor is Germany likely to. Britain remains undecided, hoping to help the Palestinians draft a resolution that other Europeans can sign up to. It’s not clear what Britain and European governments should do.

Mitt Romney won the Atlanticist vote last night by saying he'd bring back a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. That's a reference, obviously, to Barack Obama's decision, soon after moving into the White House, to have the bronze removed. That decision caused a lot of bother. When the story broke, the Obama machine insisted that the bust's removal was part of a routine changeover between presidents. But British hacks shouted 'Anglophobia' and pronounced the Special Relationship dead. The British embassy in Washington received masses of letters from Americans apologising for this great slight against Britannia. Never in the field of human history has so much been made of so little.

New York There's an eerie mood in New York right now, as the city prepares to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Al-Qaeda, or what's left of it, likes anniversaries. The police have been on overdrive ever since a "credible" tip-off about an attempted truck bomb. Officers are everywhere. Armed guards patrol landmarks and cars from bridges and tunnels are being pulled over and checked. All this reinforces the sense of something alien to New Yorkers (and almost all Americans) until ten years ago: the threat of attack. A common threat has solicited a rather wonderful common response. Shop windows have displays of commemoration; companies take adverts in local newspapers. Exhibits and events have sprung up all over the city.

The striking thing about last night's Republican Party debate was just how bad the leading GOP candidates are. Rick Perry, the new favourite, isn't terribly bright. ("Perry is like Will Ferrell doing Bush, but on half-speed," is how David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, put it.) Mitt Romney is an oily cheese merchant who keeps contradicting himself. And Bachmann is bonkers. With the USA in such a poor state, you might think President Obama would be in danger of losing the White House. But the Republican party is incapable of offering a coherent and sensible alternative. The most interesting candidates are Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, but they don't seem to stand a chance. Huntsman is too popular among liberals and Paul is too radical a libertarian.