The US war against Iraq which began in March 2003 was predicated upon the assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that US policymakers feared would fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. The world soon learned that these weapons did not exist and the initial assessments were regarded as massive intelligence failures. After 6 years, the CIA has finally released its assessment of those failures. You can skim parts of the report, but I will not be asking any questions about the report itself. It is so heavily redacted that it is difficult to follow the thread of the argument.
The Christian Science Monitor ran a very nice history of the status of the city of Jerusalem, currently a contested city and also a point of contention between Republicans and Democrats. The history is important: After the creation of a Jewish and an Arab area in the former British colony of Palestine, the UN declared the city of Jerusalem to be an international enclave, not within the sovereignty of either the Jewish or the Arab state. Israel took control of Jerusalem after the 1967 war with Jordan, Syria, and Egypt (the CSM story calls this war one provoked by “Arab aggression”–some analysts would disagree with this characterization), but few states have yet to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the city. The Republicans favor recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the city; the Democrats do not.
UPDATE: At 5 pm the Democrats voted to change their platform to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was a weird event. The change required a 2/3 voice vote in favor. The Chair had to ask three times for a vote and finally ruled that the ayes had the 2/3s necessary. It certainly didn’t sound that way to me. Make your own judgment.
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