US President Barack Obama's declaration in his policy speech Thursday, May 19, that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed territorial swaps drew forth a sharp rejection from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Before flying to Washington, he stated: The 1967 lines are indefensible. Israeli security demands an IDF presence on the Jordan River. Israel appreciates the US president's commitment to peace but a Palestinian state cannot rise at the expense of Israel's existence.

debkafile reports exclusively that President Barack Obama is ready to stamp down hard on Syrian President Bashar Assad in person for his inhuman crackdown on protest and the massacre of hundreds of dissenters. After five mass graves were found near Deraa, Obama may announce sanctions against the Syrian president even before his May 19 speech on US relations with Middle East Muslim nations, as well as recalling Ambassador Robert Ford from Damascus. Syria has threatened to hit back at Israel.

Assad's harsh crackdown appears to be working. Unless he is explicitly condemned by the US president, the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo will continue to hold back from the popular anti-regime uprising. Syrian security chiefs have begun celebrating victory and preparing a massive purge of the opposition.

Osama bin Laden's shoes are likely to stay empty for some time. Al Qaeda is not structured for a large-scale terror attack as an organization to avenge his death. Some ten top-notch operatives listed here have the will or ability - or both - for a lone wolf operation.

The US administration planned Osama bin Laden's death as a lever for al Qaeda's destruction. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's latest issue out  Friday tabs the ten master-terrorists still at large, including one who holds the key to a dirty bomb attack, and capable of masterminding revenge attacks.
This issue also assessed the prospects of Syrian President Assad's victory against his opposition.

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Israel celebrates the 63rd anniversary of its independence in good cheer. Neither by word nor hint have its leaders referred to the next challenge facing the country:  Barack Obama, president of Israel's best friend and ally, has picked the Muslim Brotherhood as his chosen partner for promoting American interests in the Arab world. His courtship of this organization, which he regards as moderate, was the rationale, say debkafile's sources, behind his bold decision to get rid of Osama bin Laden.

For President Barack Obama, removing the al Qaeda leader was part of his master plan for replacing the long-ruling Arab autocrats by new regimes with a place for the Muslim Brotherhood in government as counterweights to Muslim extremists. That is the incumbent's top goal compared with Bush who targeted Zarqawi in Iraq ...

The White House is fighting a losing battle for credibility: Its first statements on the special forces' raid which killed the al Qaeda leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2 are proving incorrect: Washington has been forced to admit that bin Laden was not armed when he was killed and his wife was not used as a human shield. This further fuels Arab-Muslim skepticism about the affair, especially with Pakistan actively challenging the US version with the help of the survivors in its custody.

The announcement that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in an American operation in Abbottabad (150 north of Islamabad in Pakistan) was made early Monday, May 2, by US President Barack Obama at the White House. The first lead to his whereabouts had been received in ...

After shelling, tank assaults and siege left 100 protesters dead in the last 48 hours without quelling the unrest, Western intelligence sources believe the menace to the regime has careered too far for President Bashar Assad to hold it at bay - an assessment shared by Ankara. The protest is likely to keep on spreading and evolving into armed rebellion. Those sources estimate the uprising as already encompassing 6-7 million Syrians (out of a population of 26 million) and a third of its area.

US President Barack Obama is building an alliance with Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan to spearhead Washington's evolving Iranian and Middle East policies. Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, is slated to replace Egypt as America's senior Middle East Muslim partner. The two leaders share the conviction that together they can come up ...

Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas follows Saudi, Libyan and Syrian rulers in turning their backs on the Obama administration. He opted for a partnership with the military-capable Hamas and thereby thrown the US-Turkish-Israeli axis off-course.

US President Barack Obama continues to avoid direct action against Bashar Assad's increasingly savage crackdown on dissidents by consolidating his partnership with Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After talking on the phone early Tuesday April 26, they voiced "deep concern over the unacceptable use of violence" in Syria – but no condemnation of the Syrian ruler or his tank charge against civilians. Assad has thus won another couple of days at least to finish off the brutal purge of his opponents.

Hours after US and British figures called for "the head of the snake" in Libya to be cut off, NATO warplanes early Monday, April 25, pulverized a building in Muammar Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah working compound in Tripoli, wrecking his offices and conference room. A government official called the strike an attempt on the Libyan ruler's life which coalition spokesmen did not deny. Qaddafi's whereabouts were not disclosed.
debkafile: NATO acted in frustration over Qaddafi's upper hand in the war.

Security forces and demonstrators continued to clash Saturday, April 23 in Damascus, Hama, Daraa and nearby Izraa after Friday's bloodbath left more than 100 dead and hundreds injured. Syrian snipers shot dead at least 15 mourners, injured dozens, at the funerals. Two Syrian lawmakers resigned their seats in protest at security police brutality against civilians. Damascus rejected President Barack Obama's charge of Iranian help to repress citizens.  France warned regime leaders they could face international prosecution.

Two US high-ranking emissaries in six days to Riyadh have not bridged the differences between Obama and Abdullah. While attaching supreme importance to relations with Washington, Abdullah insists on continuing on his independent policy path and arms purchases from multiple sources.

Saudi and Kuwait officials have warned the US that if Iran activates its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr in May as planned, there is a good chance it will blow up and the entire Gulf region suffer a nuclear disaster on the scale of the misfortune at Japan's Fukushima thereby exposing millions to radiation contamination. In recent Saudi-US talks on the acute crisis in their relations, King Abdullah demanded immediate action by Washington to stop the Iranian plant going on line.

Assad, though helped by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even the US, is in a panic because his domestic support is crumbling and he is running out of loyal troops to defend his regime .  The Syrian ruler knows better than most how fickle external support can be.  When the chips are down, no foreign power will help him outgun or outrun his own people - and they refused to be pacified by the bones he tries throwing them.

Obama is seen in the Middle East and North Africa as quitting in the middle of popular turmoil in one Arab country after another leaving a trail of instability.

In his Libya address to Americans Tuesday, March 29, President Barack Obama failed to resolve inner contradictions in his strategy for US involvement in the Western campaign against Muammar Qaddafi:
“The United States would work with its allies to hasten the day when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi leaves power, but would not use force to topple him." The US would “help the opposition” but play only a supporting role. In fact, the United States is sliding deeper into a third war in a Muslim country.