re: #343 Cheese Eating Victory Monkey

I’m not a middle east analyst, but my amature impression, after reading Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece in the Atlantic, is that this is really all about Iran.

According to that piece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are pushing for an attack on Iran by either the U.S. or Israel. Saudi Arabia is even willing to allow the Israeli airforce to refuel on Saudi soil to achieve this.

The unspoken deadline is July 2011, and virtually noone in the middle east believes Iran can be stopped by sanctions alone.

So, in addition to Obama’s ambitions to broker a deal, I bet that the Saudis, Egyptians, etc, leaned on Abbas to engage in direct talks, as a counterbalance to the inevitable outcry that is expected when war breaks out.