Monday, July 2, 2007

Next up: Plan for a NATO force to take over where Dahlan failed

".....Al-Akhbar reports: "The proposal by Abbas for deployment of an international force in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is a revival of an American plan for a 'mandate'", spelled out in a 68-page report by the Army School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) in the year 2001, whose implementation is said to have been blocked for various reasons in earlier years, but which is now again a topic of American interest.
Sources said Condoleeza Rice encouraged Abbas to continue promoting the plan for deployment of international forces to permit control of the situation in the Gaza Strip, following [the Hamas takeover]... In fact, at a time when the plan doesn't enjoy Palestinian acceptance, even from the so-called Group of 15 that advise Abbas, the American administration is insisting that this plan doesn't imply the beginning of direct deployment of American troops, but rather the deployment in an international force which NATO would help form. [The Americans also say] this will be one of the tasks that the new Quartet representative Tony Blair will be focusing on, and [that American General Keith Dayton] is undertaking to add details to the plan......."

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