UNITED
NATIONS, June
9 -- As Qatar
provides arms
into Syria, it
pays to play
peacemaker and
intellectual
locus, now
with the US
- Islamic
World
Forum.
Brookings
- Doha is
there, many
Western
journalists
are there.
Husain
Haqqani,
Martin Indyk
and US Under
Secretary of
State Tara
Sonenshine are
there; John
Kerry will
soon be there.
What's
NOT there, at
least in the
two four
person groups
on Sunday is
any
discussion of
crackdowns in
Bahrain and
now Turkey.
The
question of
involvement
from Qatar in
the kidnapping
of UN
peacekeepers
in the
Golan Heights?
Seemingly not
the menu.
Tellingly,
very little
mention
of the UN. The
UN is
becoming, or
has become,
irrelevant.
Even
in the morning
session about
Afghanistan,
there was
almost no talk
of
the UN. They
are there,
with the UNAMA
mission led by
possible Ban
Ki-moon
successor Jan
Kubis. But
what is being
accomplished?
Raising
big
questions
while some
journalists
joke-tweeted
about the lack
or
delay of salad
was Hamid
Karzai. We
spoke about
the increase
in
number of
universities
in Afghanistan
-- good thing
-- but called
the
war on terror
less
successful. It
has led to
radicalism, he
said,
citing
yesterday's
death count in
Benghazi.
At
least he was
up to the
moment. The
other
speeches, it's
as if they
didn't even
watch CNN. No
mention of
tear gas and
water cannons
in
Istanbul or
#OccupyGezi.
Outgoing OIC
chief
Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu
didn't mention
it. Is Ibrahim
Gambari still
vying to
replace him?
When
the morning
session broke
for lunch, an
MC gushed
about the free
Wi-Fi. Great:
but don't
insult the
Royal family.
A poet
was initially
sentenced to
15 years for
such a poem.
You won't hear
that, either,
at #USislam13.
Watch this
site.
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