Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials -- June 15, 2009

Protesters view a burning car next to the building of pro-government militia base near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Some hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's presidential vote. (AP photo/Vahid Salemi)

Winds of Change? -- Thomas Friedman, New York Times

Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple — just one page, indeed just one line: “Nothing has changed.”

It took me two days covering the elections in Beirut to realize that I was dead wrong. No, something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting.

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COMMENTARIES, OPINIONS, AND EDITORIALS

Russia's Bleak Economic Outlook -- Stratfor

Is a Russia-Georgia Repeat Coming? -- Matthew Collin, Moscow Times

Drugs Won the War -- Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

Afghanistan is a Winnable War -- Washington Times editorial

Palau Taking the Uighurs for 200,000,000 Dollars -- The Captain's Journal

Pakistan's Next Fight? Don't Go There -- Nicholas Schmidle, Washington Post opinion

Don't Give Up on Iraqi Democracy -- Entifadh Qanbar, Wall Street Journal opinion

The End of al Qaeda -- Mohamed El-Salam, Daily Star

Decoding Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech -- Shmuel Rosner, The New Republic

Mideast Peace Can Start With a Land Swap -- David makovsky, Wall Street Journal opinion