Heaven help us prosper during Obama years

So change has come to America? Some change, when we’ll now have a president who won’t salute the flag or sing the national anthem and whose wife isn’t proud to be American!

I hope all who voted for this disaster, and all who enabled this by their biased reporting, have their taxes doubled to pay for the redistribution of wealth Barack Obama proposes!

And since VP Joe Biden says paying higher taxes is patriotic, I’m certain Obama supporters will send a voluntary increase in their taxes come April 15!

I guess our money will now say “Praise be to Allah” instead of God Bless America!

God Bless America; we’ll certainly need it after this disaster! “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

F. Coe Bumgarner

retired

Father of our country spawns new life view

I have been waiting for the father of my country to appear since I first heard the phrase in kindergarten during a cold Michigan winter 50 years ago.

This morning, I awoke to discover that my nation not only has given me my first father of our country, but also has given us a father of our world.

I have awakened to a larger view of my own life, to a wild hope that finally I have overcome the tragedies of the death of my biological father when I was 17, the loss of my marriage and family two years ago, financial disappointment, the fears of starting life over in midlife and starting over in Tucson, the last place my parents were alive and near the mountains where spread ashes reunited them.

I am taking the day, home in my pjs, watching television news for the first time in the last troubling six years.

In the past, my vote was canceled by my husband’s. I didn’t even vote for 10 years. I kept renewing my vows to my country by running for office, engaging in political discussions and informed reading.

In this campaign, I was welcomed by the Democratic Party as a volunteer. In this election, though my husband and sons may have canceled my vote and that of a few voters I contacted, they did not cancel out the great numbers of voters with whom I spoke through my service.

I am happy, and it is personal.

Susan Minyard

Starve feverish fear; feed the common goal

I know some John McCain supporters are afraid of what Barack Obama will do as president.

Many of us understand, because we were afraid of what George W. Bush would do as president. And many of our worst fears came true.

We have lost respect and standing in the world. We have fallen behind in the war against terrorism. We are experiencing devastating economic times. We understand your fear, as we have walked through it.

You may not have voted for Obama, but come January, you will have an intelligent, thoughtful, strong and diplomatic president.

His goals for this country are all of our goals. Better education for our children. Better health care for all. A stronger, more-focused military. A government that uses our precious resources wisely. And a vision for a future independent of foreign oil.

These are not goals to fear. These are goals to work toward.

Rayna Goldman

Not holding my breath for year-round pool use

I recently heard that the City Council was planning to close the year-round pools. I was preparing my comments for the council’s public meeting. Well, so much for that.

What I would have said, had the council been courteous enough to allow us users a voice, is that the programs being cut are not the painless cuts they like to believe. They’re programs that are essential to the health of many.

In one water aerobics class, we have a diabetic student with kidney problems, an 84-year-old who keeps coming faithfully despite numerous health issues, one person with arthritis, a number of obese people, a brain surgery patient and a brittle-boned mother of three.

Most of us are on restricted incomes, and many cannot do weight-bearing exercise.

I won’t hold my breath for all council members to give up their private club memberships in sympathy, but they could at least allow our voices to be heard before they take away the only access many people have to fitness programs.

Stephanie Jackter

mother, small-business owner

Bush, Cheney are ones linked with terrorism

Some say he is a terrorist. Some hate him. Some don’t trust him. To say that Barack Obama is a terrorist is to say I am a terrorist, that the Democratic Party is a terrorist organization.

Such is not the case. Where have these distrusting people been in the past 7 1/2 years?

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney committed one of the biggest terrorist acts when they invaded Iraq, leading to the persecution of tens of thousands of Christians in Iraq and the killing of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children, which continues.

Bush and Cheney have sided with Osama bin Laden, the real terrorist, by not capturing him, as Bush promised to do. In 2005, Bush even closed the 10-year-old unit whose mission was to hunt down bin Laden.

Sen. Obama is one of the brightest and most honest candidates for president that we’ve had in a decade. Give him a break! Sen. Obama is fit for the office of the president, bar none!

DENNIS E. JANTZEN

U.S. Customs, retired

Presidency isn’t place to learn how to lead

A freshman senator with no significant accomplishment or apparent commitment to any principle is running a racist and sexist campaign while he accuses everyone else of being racist.

He is supported by questionable characters who have little concern for the ideals of American democracy as well as some union people who want to suppress free speech by abandoning secret ballots in union votes.

His funding is obscenely huge and comes from untraceable sources.

His tax plan defies logic and upon analysis will hit hardest at the very people he has duped into supporting him.

His energy policies are mostly wishful thinking.

Now his running mate (the same man who said Barack Obama wasn’t ready to be president) guarantees military challenges if Obama is elected and further states we will question his decisions in these crises.

Since Obama has already talked about registering young men and young women for the draft, I suppose that means the naive youngsters being sold on “change” will end up fighting to uphold the honor of the fearless leader and to bolster the sagging economy.

People tend to forget that the last time we elected a president who didn’t seem to have enough experience (JFK), he got us into Vietnam, destroyed any chance Lyndon Johnson may have had for a successful administration, almost had us in a “hot” war with the USSR and created a four-decades animosity with Cuba.

Aren’t we supposed to learn from the mistakes of history? The presidency is not the place to learn how to lead, and empty promises are no substitute for a record of success.

Richard Greco

History shows change can be for the worse

The Russians wanted “change” from the czars; the Germans wanted change from the failed democracy that followed World War I; the Cubans wanted change from the Batista regime; and now many Americans want change from the present administration.

The Russians got Joseph Stalin and communism; the Germans got Adolf Hitler and World War II; the Cubans got Fidel Castro and communism; and with Barack Obama, the USA would get – what?

An in-depth look at Obama’s highly questionable background might suggest he may not provide the “change” these Americans really want.

In addition to his dealings with anti-Americans and admitted terrorists, Obama’s publicly stated plan to implement “re-distribute the wealth” programs that are not only socialistic but were the Marxist basis for the communist regime in the Soviet Union is frightening.

Americans, look before you leap!

Alan L. McGee

small-business owner

Inept warnings aside, 1 action legal, other isn’t

Any adult female who feels she is not ready to accept child-bearing and its responsibilities has the right to decide. The decision should be between her, her doctor and her husband if she is married.

That decision is nobody else’s business – not religious groups, not “special interest groups” and certainly not the federal government.

If John McCain had his way, a “swat team” of U.S. marshals would swarm the door of any woman suspected of having an abortion. They would ignore the stash house of illegal immigrants next door.

Declaring “abstinence” as the answer is downright stupid. For 40 years, we’ve been warned about the pitfalls of using illegal drugs, but young people still get hooked every day.

RAY FISCHER

Elect leader to protect all of nation under God

How can a “nation under God” elect leaders who do not protect unborn babies?

What does electing leaders who fund more than 1 million abortions a year say about the elecorate?

How can a people who elect such leaders expect that their creator will continue to protect them?

These are troubling questions I hope will be considered as we support elected officials who set policy and allocate funds. Every citizen is a decision-maker. And every decision makes a difference in the life of our country.

CARLA LIVAK

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Beyond the bullets and the bluster, the United States and Pakistan need each other too much to allow tensions along the Afghan border to derail their relationship.

U.S. missile strikes on suspected militant havens in Pakistani territory have ratcheted up tensions and uncertainty, and a brief clash between forces of both nations a few days ago has heightened worries.

But few can envisage sustained fighting on the frontier or American soldiers being killed and wounded – a scenario that could shatter a strategically vital alliance between two countries that have little in common save mutual need.

Washington requires Islamabad’s help to prevent Afghanistan from sliding into chaos seven years after the ouster of the Taliban and to hunt down Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders thought to be hiding in the restive tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Many of the supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan also move through Pakistan.

Pakistan’s new civilian rulers, in turn, need U.S. cash to stave off an economic meltdown that is eroding their popularity just six months after taking power following years of dictatorship.

This nuclear-armed nation also requires American help in defeating the homegrown Islamic militants who have built up strongholds in the tribal region and forged ties with the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Those extremists are posing an increasing threat to Pakistan itself – a fact underscored by the recent devastating bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.

“I think this climate of tension cannot prevail for too long,” said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in the capital. “The stakes are really too high on either side.”

The frontier with Afghanistan is a rugged, inhospitable land where Pakistan’s government has never had much control. NATO and U.S. commanders say militants sheltering there are increasing attacks in Afghanistan and those commanders fear the extremists could be plotting another Sept. 11-scale attack in the West.

U.S. forces had been conducting strikes on “high-value” targets across the border in recent years under what many people believe was an unwritten agreement with Islamabad.

But tensions have spiked over a flurry of attacks since late August, including a highly unusual ground raid by U.S. commandos. With many Pakistanis angry, and government critics using the attacks to argue for cutting ties with the U.S., civilian and military leaders have protested strongly to Washington.

On Thursday, U.S. helicopters and Pakistani ground troops briefly traded fire along the poorly defined and marked border, without anyone being hit, officials from both nations said.

Yet almost immediately, both sides were making conciliatory noises.

“I look at U.S. support as a blessing,” President Asif Ali Zardari said in New York alongside Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who promised help for Pakistan.

Pakistan needs Western cash to avert economic crisis. The shock of higher oil and food prices has helped push up inflation to 25 percent, wrecked the government’s finances and exacerbated a trade gap that is fast eating up the country’s foreign currency reserves.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir reportedly told a meeting of donor nations in New York that “$10 billion to $15 billion was our immediate requirement” to avoid bankruptcy.

U.S. officials must tread carefully in working with Pakistan against extremist groups. While leaders of both side stress they have a common enemy, many Pakistanis blame the rise in violence here on the alliance with Washington and the U.S. border strikes are feeding public anger.

“The Americans cannot afford to destabilize the government too much,” said Talat Masood, a retired general.

Some analysts see the outrage generated by the Marriott bombing as a possible turning point, however.

“This is a historic moment to create a mass opposition to the militants,” said Ahmad, the Quaid-i-Azam professor. “The biggest challenge now is being able to say this is not only our own war, but it is also a common war with the Afghans, NATO and the U.S.”

Chris Brummitt, Islamabad bureau chief for The Associated Press, has reported on southern Asian affairs since 2002.

A rare foreign policy success for the Bush administration is imploding as North Korea backs away from pledges to abandon nuclear weapons, pretty much as the president’s critics on the right had warned.

Distracted by an economic crisis at home and a series of diplomatic setbacks abroad, President Bush and his top aides are watching the collapse of a painstakingly negotiated process that just months ago seemed on track to produce a major international success and perhaps bring a final end to the Korean War before they leave office.

With time running out on the administration and questions about the health of dictator Kim Jong Il, North Korea has stopped cooperating with the six-nation effort to rid it of atomic bombs and is moving to restart a reactor it disabled with great fanfare in June.

It also has tested a missile engine in violation of U.N. sanctions, officials say.

On Friday, the State Department all but acknowledged that the prospects for an agreement while Bush is president are dead, although the United States isn’t giving up.

“We’re going to continue to push this process forward and do those things that we believe are responsible acts in the national interest,” spokesman Sean McCormack said, adding: “Then we will be ready to turn over what we hope is a six-party process moving forward, as well as other diplomatic initiatives” to a new administration.

The list of those handovers is growing.

Hopes for even the outlines of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by year’s end are dwindling rapidly and Iran is continuing its nuclear work in defiance of U.S. and international demands. In addition, the administration is facing new challenges in Latin America and from an emboldened Russia flexing its muscles in Georgia and elsewhere.

Some goals had been longshots to begin with, but many had held out hope that a North Korea deal was achievable.

North Korea confirmed for the first time Thursday that it is making “thorough preparations” to restart its Yongbyon nuclear facility because the United States has failed to follow through with promised incentives. It also said it was no longer interested in one of its main demands, removal from a U.S. terrorism blacklist.

North Korea “will go its own way,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Friday that it’s hard to know whether North Korea’s moves reflect a change of policy, or reflect their pattern of “negotiating, and then trying to provoke, if you will, test, create divisions to see if the six parties are serious in sticking together and sticking by their deals.”

From time to time, the United States has watched as North Korea has negotiated, then has stepped out. “They’re obstructionists,” Hadley said during a briefing with reporters on Bush’s trip next week to the United Nations. “They try to divide, and if we stand firm, they come back into a negotiating cycle.”

“We don’t know whether we are in one of those, and this is sort of posturing and pressuring, or whether it is something more than that. I don’t think we know now, I don’t think we will know for a while.”

McCormack refused to comment on how the ill health of Kim, who analysts believe is supportive of the negotiations, may have affected North Korea’s decision-making. He also declined to speculate on any other motive for Pyongyang’s change of heart or whether they might be holding out for a better deal from the next president.

“I don’t know who the next president, who the next secretary of state, is going to be, but I would wager that they’re not going to get a much different deal from the next administration as they’re getting from this administration,” he said. “We are prepared to meet our obligations, should North Korea meet its obligations.”

Such entreaties, though, look destined to fall on deaf ears, particularly given uncertainty over Kim’s authority in Pyongyang.

After detonating a nuclear device in 2006, North Korea a year later promised to give up atomic arms in exchange for diplomatic concessions and energy aid. In late June, it submitted a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear activities and blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon in a show of its commitment.

Since then, the accord has stalled with Washington refusing to take North Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism until it accepts a plan to verify its the declaration.

Bush refused to negotiate with North Korea for years, accusing the nation he once included as part of an “axis of evil” of habitually lying and cheating on any deal it cut. Since he agreed to join the group talks, Bush has been openly suspicious of North Korea’s motives while welcoming what had seemed to be the prospect that the Stalinist state might really put itself out of the nuke business.

Foreign policy hawks, including some current and former members of Bush’s team, said the disarmament for aid talks were a pig in a poke, even as negotiations lurched along.

With less leverage, Washington has appeared befuddled and reduced to making desperate appeals for the North to get back on board.

McCormack acknowledged that North Korea’s recent actions — all taken after Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in August — represented a “negative progression” and he called on Pyongyang, which he said was “getting closer and closer” to restarting Yongbyon, to change course.

“We would urge them not to get to that point,” he said.

Matthew Lee covers the State Department for The Associated Press. AP Writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

For Americans debating how to balance freedom and security in a post-9/11 world, Sderot - indeed all of Israel - offers a case study in how to combat terrorism while simultaneously maintaining a commitment to freedom of expression in Israeli society.

For a glimpse of life under constant threat of terrorist attack, travel to Sderot – the now-famous Israeli town that has endured thousands of rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip a few miles away.

During my brief visit there last month, Sderot was enjoying a rare period of relative calm thanks to a truce declared in late June.

Nevertheless, the inhabitants stay on edge, wondering where the next indiscriminate projectile will land and whom it will kill or maim. Despite the ceasefire, a rocket exploded in the town a few days before my arrival.

What is remarkable, however, is the aura of normalcy in Sderot – a hard-fought mayoral contest, schools in session, shops open for business. Still, evidence of vigilance abounds.

Bomb shelters dot the landscape at every bus stop and in every park. Kindergarten children don’t go outside for recess because the 15-second warning of incoming rockets wouldn’t give teachers enough time to get them back inside the fortified buildings.

When I asked Achlama Peretz, a college administrator and candidate for mayor, how the citizens of Sderot coped with the daily stress, she replied: “We have no choice but to keep living our lives as best we can. We must do so because Sderot has become a symbol of resilience and freedom for all Israelis.”

For Americans debating how to balance freedom and security in a post-9/11 world, Sderot – indeed all of Israel – offers a case study in how to combat terrorism while simultaneously maintaining a commitment to freedom of expression in Israeli society.

Full disclosure: I was in Israel as a guest of Project Interchange, an institute of the American Jewish Committee. Traveling with me were representatives from seven other Washington-based organizations ranging from the National Association of Evangelicals to the American Civil Liberties Union.

This was no propaganda tour. Our hosts made sure that we met with Jews and Arabs representing a broad spectrum of opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and the many other challenges facing the State of Israel.

In fact, despite knowing the old joke about “two Jews and three opinions,” I was taken aback by the wide diversity of views among Jewish Israelis about the Palestinian question, the actions of the Israeli government, the settlements, religion-state relations, and many other hot-button issues.

Add to the mix the Palestinian and Israeli Arab voices we heard, and the result was exposure to a robust, intense discussion about the future of the Israeli experiment in democracy.

I can honestly say that I have never spoken to citizens of any nation (including my own) as self-critical as the Israelis we met. As one Israeli human rights leader told us, there is more criticism of Israel in Israel than in America.

Dissent and debate in Israel appear to be part of what it means to be patriotic – and Israelis are intensely patriotic – not an affront to flag and country. Free speech is not something to be feared or managed, but rather the lifeblood of Israeli democracy.

What most impressed me, however, weren’t the words we heard but the actions we saw: Many thousands of Israeli Jews in hundreds of human rights groups working to improve civil rights for Israeli Arabs, Ethiopian immigrants, Bedouin women, and Palestinians in the occupied territories.

This is the Israel we don’t know. With all of the images of war and conflict, and the legitimate debate about Israeli policies, the news media tell us far too little about Israelis standing up for the rights of others and working to build a democratic society in a hostile, dangerous neighborhood.

If Israelis can uphold free speech, value dissent and work for human rights in a nation where every day is a potential 9/11, then so can we.

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center (www.firstamendmentcenter.org). E-mail: chaynes@freedomforum.org.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. troop surge did what it aimed: Calm Iraq down. But now, an increasing number of U.S. officials are worried that the hard-won drop in violence may be only temporary.

The fear: that Iraq may squander this period of relative calm, failing to reach the difficult political deals the surge was designed to allow — and thus setting the stage for another round of violence some day.

The worry is behind U.S. military leaders’ constant warning that Iraq’s current calm may not endure. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was the latest, saying this week that U.S. military commanders do not yet believe “our gains are necessarily enduring.”

Their concerns were underlined by a car bombing Friday night in the mainly Shiite town of Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The blast, which Iraqi officials said killed more than 30 people and wounded scores more, was the latest in a series of attacks in areas north of the capital.

Iraqi leaders face major challenges in the coming months, even as the effectiveness of the surge remains a hot-button topic in the U.S. presidential race.

If the Iraqis lack the necessary political skill or desire to compromise, those challenges would lay the ground for a new wave of violence.

Ironically, the Iraqi government’s newfound strength could tempt the Shiite leadership to resist calls for compromise with its rivals.

“We have to admit to shortcomings in the practice of democracy,” parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani acknowledged this week. “And we are lacking a spirit of consensus.”

Exhibit A: The Iraqi government’s delay in integrating Sunni armed men into the country’s police and armed forces. U.S. officials insist the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki intends to do so starting next month.

About 20 percent of the armed men — many of them ex-insurgents who volunteered to join local security forces — will go into the army and police. The rest will be placed in civilian government jobs.

But there are signs the Iraqi government, which distrusts the Sunni volunteers, is dragging its feet — with potentially explosive consequences.

The U.S. puts the number of armed volunteers at about 100,000 — the overwhelming majority of them Sunnis.

But the Iraqi government is questioning the U.S. figure. Chief spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said this week that the volunteers number no more than 50,000 — half the American count.

Last week, about 100 Sunni volunteers held an angry protest in north Baghdad, accusing the government of discrimination and of bowing to pressure from Shiite-dominated Iran.

Many of those volunteers were members of Sunni insurgent groups who broke with al-Qaida in Iraq and joined forces with the Americans, who have been paying them for nearly two years.

The former insurgents are Sunnis who deeply resent Shiite domination of the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein five years ago — and could return to violence if they feel cheated by the Shiites in government.

The U.S. hopes to ease Sunni concerns by giving them a share of political power through new provincial elections this year. But there again is the potential for explosive anger.

Many Sunnis boycotted the last local balloting in January 2005, enabling Shiites and Kurds to win power, even in areas with substantial Sunni populations. A new round of elections could give Sunnis the political power their numbers warrant — and thus keep them from violence.

But Iraq’s parliament has been bogged down in a complex fight between Arabs and Kurds over the new election law that’s first needed. Lawmakers took up the measure again this week after their summer break — but without any sign of an early breakthrough.

Even if the lawmakers manage to approve a bill, the risk of violence in the run-up to the election would be high.

The challenges lie against a backdrop of growing — if still quiet — concern that al-Maliki may lack the skills — or the desire — to manage them. The government’s success in clearing Baghdad and Basra of Shiite militias in spring and summer emboldened the prime minister, who previously had been widely dismissed as weak.

Now he’s pushing back against the Americans in talks on a new security agreement, warning Sunnis against resisting plans to take over their armed volunteers and threatening force against the Kurds.

That has stirred fears that al-Maliki is more interested in promoting Shiite interests than reaching accommodation with Sunnis and Kurds — and with his rivals within the Shiite community as well.

“What we see is very substantial progress. But that progress has by itself created a climate in which Iraqi leaders and factions feel much more secure about advancing their own cause,” said former Pentagon analyst Anthony Cordesman.

Iraqi politicians often see other sectarian and ethnic groups in the country “as rivals” rather than potential partners, Cordesman notes.

That could mean the surge — which so successfully lowered violence — fails at its larger goal of providing some space for political peace to flourish.

Robert H. Reid is the AP’s Baghdad bureau chief and has covered Iraq since before the U.S.-led invasion.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Latin America’s leaders rallied around Evo Morales on Friday as Bolivia’s president fought to keep his Andean nation whole, but few backed his claim that Washington was inciting the unrest.

Only Venezuela’s pugilistic president, Hugo Chavez, matched Morales by booting an American ambassador.

The region’s response to this week’s upheaval in Bolivia evinces feelings rather that Washington, the traditional power broker in the Americas, has largely abandoned it.

There is, above all, a sense that it’s up to South America to keep Bolivia from breaking apart – even if it’s not clear how.

Yet few of the regional leaders’ messages of support for Morales have echoed the anti-American rants of Chavez.

Both men blame a conspiracy of “oligarchs” and U.S. imperialists for escalating anti-Morales violence though without providing evidence. The U.S. denies it’s trying to oust Morales.

President Alan Garcia of Peru, whose constant quarrels with Morales and Chavez’s “21st-century socialism” have occasionally devolved into insults, was among Latin leaders backing the Bolivian leader on Friday.

Garcia told reporters in Lima on Friday that he opposes “any separatist effort to break the integrity of nations.”

His guest, leftist President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, sent Morales “a big hug” and reminded journalists of the Bolivian president’s impressive 67 ratification percent vote in an Aug. 10 recall referendum.

Brazil came out swinging against the idea of Morales being overthrown by wealthy landed gentry more sympathetic to the United States than to their first indigenous president.

Brazil “will not tolerate a rupture in Bolivia’s democratic order,” Presidential aide Marco Aurelio Garcia said.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya announced Friday that he was delaying receiving the credentials of a new U.S. ambassador in solidarity with Morales. Both he and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua backed Morales’ claims of U.S. meddling.

Argentina, Colombia and Brazil — whose center-left president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has emerged as a strong counterbalance to Chavez — are among the majority of nations that have not.

They been trying in vain to mediate in Bolivia, where two-week-old protests organized by Morales’ pro-autonomy opponents in Bolivia’s natural gas-rich eastern provinces have escalated dangerously.

Eight people were killed Thursday in a clash between Morales’ backers and opponents. The violence followed the sacking earlier in the week of government offices and seizures of natural gas fields that for two days curtailed gas flows to Brazil by 10 percent.

Morales sent troops Friday to the province where the killings occurred, declaring a state of siege there. He also ordered the military to restore control of the gas fields. But he has largely lost control of Bolivia’s four eastern provinces, whose leaders are fighting with him over gas revenues and a proposed new constitution.

Morales has called a Dec. 7 nationwide referendum on the new constitution, which would consolidate his efforts to favor the country’s long-suppressed indigenous majority and help him redistribute unproductive large estates to landless peasants.

While the government complains of alleged U.S. intervention, many Bolivians are incensed by Chavez’s influence, and accuse Morales of acting on the advice of Venezuelan advisers. They also decry the tens of millions of dollars in aid from Caracas.

Sensitivity to foreign meddling — U.S. or otherwise — is profound, as exhibited Friday by Bolivian armed forces chief Gen. Luis Trigo, who has shown nothing but loyalty to Morales.

In response to Chavez’s pledge a day earlier to intervene militarily if Morales were overthrown, Trigo responded, “We will not permit any foreign military force to set foot on national territory.”

It would be a big mistake to see Latin America’s left as a monolith slavishly following Chavez, who many consider a threat to regional stability.

Ecuador, for example, has refused to join ALBA, the Chavez-conceived socialist trading alliance that includes Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua — and now Honduras.

Other Chavez-related concerns include his weapons purchases from and growing military ties to Russia, which sent two long-range Tupolev bombers for a friendly visit this week and is planning naval exercises with Venezuela in November.

“South America hasn’t been a place of confrontation between the great powers since the 1970s and ’80s. Could that now be changing?” asked Alexandre Barros, a Brazilian political analyst.

If so, it would be poison for the economic integration that South America’s leaders have been discussing in hopes of one day creating something similar to the European Union.

Such a union would directly challenge U.S. commercial interests in the region, even though those interests are diminishing slowly anyway as Chinese, Indian and other foreign companies invest in the continent’s mineral riches and buy huge amounts of commodities including iron ore and soy.

Even Washington’s friends in the region have bitterly decried a general U.S. neglect that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks— with the exception of Colombia where close U.S. cooperation has helped a right-wing government throw the hemisphere’s last major rebel army into disarray.

The general power vacuum hasn’t made life easy for Philip Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador ordered expelled by Bolivia this week.

Goldberg was briefly recalled to Washington after Morales’ supporters learned in June that a former defense minister wanted for extradition in the killing of at least 60 protesters in October 2003 was quietly granted U.S. political asylum a year ago and was living in Florida.

Thousands marched on the U.S. Embassy in La Paz to register their anger — and were applauded by Morales.

Frank Bajak is an Associated Press reporter based in Colombia.

BAQOUBA, Iraq – The Iraqi battalion leader huddled over the map with his American advisers, showing them how he planned to surround a Sunni enclave where al-Qaida militants were believed hiding.

The Americans nodded in approval and assured Col. Faisal Malik Mohsen the roads would be cleared of bombs. U.S. attack helicopters would provide cover to keep insurgents from escaping.

The raid last week northeast of Baghdad did not find many weapons or flush out scores of hidden fighters. But it accomplished a wider objective: taking another step toward putting Iraqi security forces in control of ground operations.

Such transitions to Iraqi command – occurring at different speeds around the country – have taken on added importance as Washington and Baghdad negotiate a pact that could have the last U.S. soldiers leaving by the end of 2011.

But they also expose the many weaknesses of the Iraqi forces that still rely on American help for everything from air support to bottled water in the field.

U.S. troops even were forced to step in and provide fuel when the National Police did not receive government allotments for about two weeks in July, leaving many units near empty.

Before the Aug. 21 raid, informants had warned that militants would likely stand and fight. The informants were wrong. Instead of bullets, the police commandos were greeted with smiles and glasses of water as they searched houses.

Two men were detained without incident and several assault rifles were seized.

Mohsen, the 42-year-old commander from the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, and his U.S. advisers backers acknowledged their intelligence had been faulty. The militants probably fled ahead of the operation. Still they proclaimed the raid a success because one more al-Qaida safe haven was gone.

The National Police – a 40,000-strong paramilitary force that is one of the three main pillars of the Iraqi security apparatus – have faced roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses since arriving in Diyala province late last month in the latest government effort to rout insurgents there. Five commandos have been killed and eight wounded.

U.S. officials maintain the force is improving – a necessary step before the Americans can go home. But the Iraqis are still lacking in logistical and explosives expertise as well as medical capabilities.

“When people ask what the exit strategy is, this is it,” said Col. Thearon Williams, 45, of Detroit, commander of the U.S. advisory team for the National Police. “It’s small groups of Americans living among the Iraqis and training them.”

The Iraqi security forces have enjoyed increased public confidence after a series of government offensives against Sunni and Shiite extremists that began in March in the southern city of Basra.

But U.S. forces were needed as backup in every situation and it took a Shiite militia cease-fire and Iranian intervention to stop the fierce fighting that broke out in Basra.

Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warns against exaggerating the Iraqi troops’ progress, citing serious ethnic and sectarian tensions and a shortage of experienced officers.

“Both Iraqi and U.S. politicians now seem to take such reporting too seriously and be unaware of how much still needs to be done,” he said in a recent analysis.

The Aug. 21 operation showed the interplay between the Iraqis and the Americans trying to get Iraq’s forces into shape.

Before the raid, Mohsen’s American advisers told him to weigh the timing carefully. His Iraqi commanding general called him to a special meeting on the eve of the raid to make sure he was ready.

Mohsen, who is scheduled for leadership training in the United States later this year, was eager for the fight. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that his unit isn’t ready to operate alone.

“We need the Americans,” he said. “We need time. We cannot build a whole country in a few years. We complement each other.”

With the raid set to go, the national policemen in their trademark blue camouflage uniforms rolled out before dawn in blue-and-white pickups reinforced with metal sheeting and piled high with thin mattresses and plastic chairs that served as seats for the gunners.

To ensure surprise, Mohsen led a group on foot through a palm grove, while the convoy waited down the road for the go-ahead to approach the isolated Sunni hamlet of Harbatiliyah, 15 miles northeast of Baqouba. U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead.

“Everybody knows this area used to be a bunker for al-Qaida in Iraq,” Mohsen said. “But they know they can’t fight us.”

Sgt. Razzaq Latif al-Osmi, a 21-year-old newlywed from Nasiriyah, and other squadron leaders ordered their men into formation and began searching the collection of mud thatch compounds, including many houses abandoned last year after most Shiite residents were scared away.

The troops knocked politely on the gates — often welcomed by men holding out their IDs ready to be checked — then carefully picked through piles of thin mattresses, clothing and bags.

Sheiks and young men wearing yellow bands showing they’re members of a U.S.-allied Sunni group came forth to greet the police.

At one point, al-Osmi questioned a teenage boy about Saddam Hussein-era uniforms found in a closet, then patted him on the shoulder and assured him the search was for his own security.

The young squadron commander, with sweat dripping off his face as temperatures pushed to 120 degrees, said he didn’t really expect to find any weapons.

“But it’s important to send a message to the insurgents,” he said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Syria’s diplomatic recognition of Lebanon marks a symbolic turning point in the two neighbors’ often turbulent history and may have bigger significance for the Middle East and the chances of an overall peace deal with Israel.

By doing something Damascus has resisted for decades, Syrian President Bashar Assad is seen as being ready to make concessions and boost stability in the region, provided he remains a force in Lebanese politics.

At the same time, Syria and Israel are in indirect peace negotiations – another apparent sign that Syria is rethinking its approach to the big Middle East issues.

Lebanese have lived for much of the past 30 years under Syrian military and political domination. Just three years ago, the country was in turmoil over the assassination of a prominent former prime minister and the suspicion Syria was behind it.

So Lebanese tend to be skeptical about the motivations behind Assad’s newfound willingness to exchange ambassadors and demarcate the ill-defined border between the two countries.

But Edmond Saab, executive editor of An-Nahar, a leading daily which is seen as anti-Syrian, reads a positive message in Assad’s move – “that he desires peace and that Syria is a factor of stability and not a threat . . . It is a country that knows what it wants and goes for it.”

What Syria wanted was assurance that it will still have influence in Lebanon through its allies and that its back will remain relatively secure – the Lebanon border is only a 20-minute drive from Damascus.

It got all that with the creation last month of a new government in Beirut that gives Syrian-and Iranian-backed Hezbollah significant power. The new president, Michel Suleiman, is also considered relatively friendly to Syria, having been army chief for 10 years when Damascus controlled Lebanon.

Once those changes were in place, Damascus was open to a historic turnaround.

Ever since Lebanon was created by the region’s French rulers in 1920, Syria had refused to acknowledge its sovereignty, leaving the Lebanese with a permanent feeling of living on borrowed time. Now Syria has agreed to recognize that sovereignty.

“It’s a win-win situation,” said Patrick Seale, a British expert on Syria. “The Lebanese get diplomatic recognition and the Syrians get recognition of vital interests in Lebanon.”

The move also suggests Assad is stepping out of the shadow of his late father, from whom he inherited the presidency in 2000. Besides the new approach to Lebanon, Syria, long regarded as the most implacable of Israel’s foes, is talking peace.

Shlomo Brom, senior researcher at the Jaffee Center at Tel Aviv University in Israel, says Assad’s Lebanon gambit “indicates that Assad can be trusted more in negotiations because he is willing to make positive and far-reaching changes.”

Not all in Israel are convinced. Hawkish lawmaker Yuval Steinitz says Israel should stop negotiating with Damascus because “Lebanon is still not independent. It is under the Syrian-Iranian occupation via the Hezbollah power over the Lebanese government.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently warned that “if Lebanon becomes a Hezbollah state” and guerrillas attacked Israel again, Israel would hit back harder than it did in the 2006 war.

For Lebanese, Syria remains a formidable challenge. Seventeen times bigger than Lebanon and four times more populous, Syria has long had powerful allies here, and the question is how that they will act from now on – especially Hezbollah, whose 34-day war with Israel in 2006 triggered widespread Israeli bombing of the country.

Brom, former chief of strategic planning in the Israeli army, said he expects Syria to go on meddling in Lebanon.

Sateh Noureddine, managing editor of the Lebanese As-Safir daily, which tilts toward Syria’s Lebanese allies, said Syria’s clout may even “grow stronger and more organized.”

Syria deployed troops in Lebanon as peacekeepers during the country’s 15-year civil war, and they stayed long after it ended in 1990. The Syrian intelligence chief, based in Lebanon, amounted to a de facto governor, approving presidents, prime ministers and governments, which all vowed allegiance to Syria. Opponents were driven out, or even assassinated.

That grip began to slip in 2005, when Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Widely accused of responsibility – something it has always denied – Syria was forced to withdraw its troops. But the assassinations of anti-Syrian figures continued.

Lebanon’s agony poisoned Syria’s already troubled ties with the West, particularly the U.S., which demands it leave Lebanon alone and stop backing Hezbollah and others Washington considers terrorists.

But cooperating on Lebanon has already helped break Assad’s international isolation; French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to reward Damascus by visiting the Syrian capital in September.

After eight years in power, Assad may feel strong enough to resist any pushback from internal opponents of the concession on Lebanon. But he faces problems at home.

Last month, his top military adviser, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, was assassinated. His killers are unknown, but the slaying has raised talk of rivalries within the leadership.

These may not be related directly to Lebanon, but they are being read here as a signal to Assad to step carefully.

Sam F. Ghattas The Associated Press’ Lebanon correspondent, has covered Lebanese affairs for two decades. Associated Press Writer Josef Federman contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

BAGHDAD – The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace – a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had.

The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.

This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press this past week that early indications show senior leaders of al-Qaida may be considering shifting their main focus from Iraq to the war in Afghanistan.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the AP on Thursday that the insurgency as a whole has withered to the point where it is no longer a threat to Iraq’s future.

“Very clearly, the insurgency is in no position to overthrow the government or, really, even to challenge it,” Crocker said. “It’s actually almost in no position to try to confront it. By and large, what’s left of the insurgency is just trying to hang on.”

Shiite militias, notably the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, have lost their power bases in Baghdad, Basra and other major cities. An important step was the routing of Shiite extremists in the Sadr City slums of eastern Baghdad this spring – now a quiet though not fully secure district.

Al-Sadr and top lieutenants are now in Iran. Still talking of a comeback, they are facing major obstacles, including a loss of support among a Shiite population weary of war and no longer as terrified of Sunni extremists as they were two years ago.

Despite the favorable signs, U.S. commanders are leery of proclaiming victory or promising that the calm will last.

The premature declaration by the Bush administration of “Mission Accomplished” in May 2003 convinced commanders that the best public relations strategy is to promise little, and couple all good news with the warning that “security is fragile” and that the improvements, while encouraging, are “not irreversible.”

Iraq still faces a mountain of problems: sectarian rivalries, power struggles within the Sunni and Shiite communities, Kurdish-Arab tensions, corruption. Any one of those could rekindle widespread fighting.

But the underlying dynamics in Iraqi society that blew up the U.S. military’s hopes for an early exit, shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, have changed in important ways in recent months.

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

That has helped establish a sense of normalcy in the streets of the capital. People are expressing a new confidence in their own security forces, which in turn are exhibiting a newfound assertiveness with the insurgency largely in retreat.

Statistics show violence at a four-year low. The monthly American death toll appears to be at its lowest of the war – four killed in action this month as of Friday, compared with 66 in July a year ago. From a daily average of 160 insurgent attacks in July 2007, the average has plummeted to about two dozen a day this month. On Wednesday, the nationwide total was 13.

Beyond that, there is something in the air in Iraq this summer.

In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.

Now a moment has arrived for the Iraqis to try to take those positive threads and weave them into a lasting stability.

The questions facing both Americans and Iraqis are: What kinds of help will the country need from the U.S. military, and for how long?

The questions will take on greater importance as the U.S. presidential election nears, with one candidate pledging a troop withdrawal and the other insisting on staying.

Iraqi authorities have grown dependent on the U.S. military after more than five years of war. While they are aiming for full sovereignty with no foreign troops on their soil, they do not want to rush. In a similar sense, the Americans fear that after losing more than 4,100 troops, the sacrifice could be squandered.

U.S. commanders say a substantial American military presence will be needed beyond 2009. But judging from the security gains that have been sustained over the first half of this year – as the Pentagon withdrew five Army brigades sent as reinforcements in 2007 – the remaining troops could be used as peacekeepers more than combatants.

As a measure of the transitioning U.S. role, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond says that when he took command of American forces in the Baghdad area about seven months ago, he was spending 80 percent of his time working on combat-related matters and about 20 percent on what the military calls “nonkinetic” issues, such as supporting the development of Iraqi government institutions and humanitarian aid.

Now Hammond estimates those percentages have been almost reversed. For several hours one recent day, for example, Hammond consulted on water projects with a Sunni sheik in the Radwaniyah area of southwest Baghdad, then spent time with an Iraqi physician/entrepreneur in the Dora district of southern Baghdad – an area, now calm, that in early 2007 was one of the capital’s most violent zones.

“We’re getting close to something that looks like an end to mass violence in Iraq,” says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus on war strategy. Biddle is not ready to say it’s over, but he sees the U.S. mission shifting from fighting the insurgents to keeping the peace.

Although Sunni and Shiite extremists are still around, they have surrendered the initiative and have lost the support of many ordinary Iraqis. That can be traced to an altered U.S. approach to countering the insurgency – a Petraeus-driven move to take more U.S. troops off their big bases and put them in Baghdad neighborhoods where they mixed with ordinary Iraqis and built a new level of trust.

Army Col. Tom James, a brigade commander who is on his third combat tour in Iraq, explains the new calm this way:

“We’ve put out the forest fire. Now we’re dealing with pop-up fires.”

It’s not the end of fighting. It looks like the beginning of a perilous peace.

Maj. Gen. Ali Hadi Hussein al-Yaseri, the chief of patrol police in the capital, sees the changes.

“Even eight months ago,” he says, “Baghdad was not today’s Baghdad.”

Robert Burns is AP’s chief military reporter, and Robert Reid is AP’s chief of bureau in Baghdad. Reid has covered the war from his post in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Burns, based in Washington, has made 21 reporting trips to Iraq; on his latest during July, Burns spent nearly three weeks in central and northern Iraq, observing military operations and interviewing both U.S. and Iraqi officers.

By Robert H. Reid, Robert Burns

Barack Obama wants to sound like the voice of reason on U.S. foreign policy – the guy who would abandon Bush administration policies he sees as shortsighted, self-defeating or just plain wrong. Problem is, George Bush keeps beating him to it.

The administration’s turnabout on a timeline for a U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq and its new willingness to sit down and talk with adversaries Iran and North Korea make it hard for Obama to define himself as the clear alternative.

The shifts don’t help John McCain, either.

As the White House blurs formerly sharp lines, Bush’s would-be Republican inheritor is left to defend positions that the administration has left behind. In the case of Iraq, McCain now stakes a position more absolute than Bush and less popular with voters.

McCain is opposed to setting any timeline for withdrawals and says going to war was the right decision. Polls show a majority of Americans think the U.S. should have stayed out of the war.

In the space of about a week, Bush has reversed course and agreed to set a “general time horizon” for bringing home more U.S. troops and sent envoys to meet face to face with Iranian and North Korean diplomats under terms he once rejected.

Obama is poised to be the first black presidential nominee of a major party, and the need for change is the mantra of his campaign.

But the Illinois Democrat is losing his high contrast on signal foreign policy matters just as he tries to buff his thin foreign policy experience with a grand tour of Afghanistan, the Mideast and Europe.

He stuck to generalities Thursday during a speech in Berlin that implicitly cast him as redeemer of European faith bruised by the Iraq war and Bush anti-terror tactics widely opposed in Europe.

Europeans sometimes view America as “part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right,” Obama said.

Obama has opposed the Iraq war from the start. He predicted that Bush’s troop surge would fail and insists he’d bring most troops home within 16 months.

Looking forward, though, his major policy difference with the Bush administration is blurry gray instead of black and white: Would a timetable for troops withdrawal be flexible or fixed?

The converging policies on Iran and North Korea leave even more mush. Talks are likely to continue with both of those members of Bush’s old “axis of evil” through the administration’s waning months, under rules that sound pretty much like those Obama would impose.

Obama also mouthed all the ritual political catechisms expected of U.S. presidential candidates when touring Israel and the West Bank last week, including a firm endorsement of Israel’s right to defend itself that was intended to please Jewish voters at home.

He said, if elected, he’d work harder and faster for peace than his predecessor but said little to suggest his tactics or goals would be much different.

Obama is being pushed to the pragmatic middle of the road by the need to appeal to a wider audience as he looks to the fall election and by the imperatives of foreign policy problems that are a lot more complicated up close.

Bush is going there willingly in an apparent attempt to pocket a foreign policy victory or two before he leaves office.

If it’s hard to imagine how Obama can suddenly seem same-old, same-old, it’s even more difficult to fathom how quickly Bush has walked away from positions that once seemed immutable.

“I think the parallels are uncanny,” between the new Bush administration positions on Iran and North Korea, said Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush.

“We started out with both, thinking the solution to the problem in both North Korea and Iran was regime change. And we have abandoned it in both cases.”

Scowcroft, speaking last week at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, approved of the policy shifts as pragmatic or flexible, although he said the administration remains internally conflicted over what to do about the potential threat of a rising Iran.

“We’ve backed away from regime change but not toward much of anything else,” he said.

Iran nuclear talks attended by one of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s top deputies produced no immediate results, and Rice seemed miffed to have stuck her neck out.

Until last weekend’s session in Europe, the Bush administration had refused to join negotiations over Iran’s disputed nuclear program unless Iran shelved the most worrisome parts of the program before coming to the table.

Iran hasn’t shut off the nuclear centrifuges that scare the West and Israel and may not have to under either a Bush or Obama administration.

Days later, Rice herself was at a table in Asia with North Korea’s foreign minister, hand-picked envoy of a man Bush once called a “tyrant,” hereditary leader Kim Jong Il. Of course, North Korea called Bush a tyrant and an imbecile, so there were insults to go around.

It was mostly a small-talk session, but Rice said she used the highest-level contact between the two nations in more than four years to say that North Korea isn’t out of the diplomatic woods.

“I don’t think the North Koreans left with any illusions about the fact that the ball was in their court,” to prove they are telling the truth about the extent of their shuttered nuclear weapons program, Rice said Thursday in Singapore.

The talking has started, however, and Rice is winning an administration argument over dealing with North Korea gently in the interest of dismantling a program the North Koreans have proved can make bombs.

The administration was also ready to invite a visiting Syrian delegation for a chat-up with a top U.S. diplomat last week and only changed its mind when the most prominent member of the Syrian group dropped out.

The 2006 bipartisan Iraq Study Group criticized the Bush administration’s diplomatic freeze on Iran and Syria as counterproductive.

Gradual shifts began not long after, with the administration agreeing to talk to both nations about what the U.S. calls their meddlesome or deadly activities inside Iraq.

Anne Gearan covers diplomacy and foreign affair for The Associated Press.