News stories by Barbara Slavin, page 4

As U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled a new economic support plan for fledgling democracies in the Middle East and set down principles for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Tehran called back two ships carrying demonstrators who had intended to show solidarity with beleaguered Shiites in Bahrain.

Reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering some form of membership for two non-Gulf states — Jordan and Morocco — confirm that the conservative Sunni monarchies of the Middle East are closing ranks against Iran, Shiite-led Iraq and the democratic wave sweeping the region.

The U.S. discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound some 50 kilometres from Islamabad is a 'defining moment' for a U.S.-Pakistan relationship fraught with duplicity and dashed expectations.

For years, U.S. officials and nongovernmental organisations devoted to democracy promotion toiled in the Middle East with little expectation of success.

In the course of 24 hours earlier this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met a top envoy from Libya, dispatched a senior Turkish official to Tripoli and traveled to Bahrain and Syria, all struggling to survive the pro- democracy Arab spring.

As the Barack Obama administration seeks to limit its involvement in a third Muslim conflict in Libya, efforts are intensifying to help it find a political solution to the longest U.S. war — in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia's incursion into neighbouring Bahrain is a risky move that could further inflame domestic unrest in both countries and give a propaganda boost to Tehran's campaign to cultivate the Arab street.

For years now, supporters of the Iranian opposition group the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) have lobbied in vain to have the organisation taken off the U.S. State Department's terrorism list.

Egypt's revolution appears to have stiffened the spine of the Barack Obama administration when it comes to Iran.

Prospects for a negotiated solution of the world's nuclear quarrel with Iran are cloudier in the aftermath of talks in Istanbul that ended without even an agreement to meet again.