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The Mideast on rewind - -

By Editorial

Editorial

The Mideast on rewind

Familiar faces are again vying for power. Consider Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Mohammad Khatami in Iran.
February 11, 2009

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It's beginning to look a lot like 1998 in the Middle East. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister from 1996 to 1999, has a shot at taking over again after a very close election Tuesday. In Iran, Mohammad Khatami, the country's president from 1997 to 2005, on Sunday announced his candidacy in the June presidential race. If both win, they can growl at each other via the airwaves just like they did a decade ago.

It's common in parliamentary democracies (or theocratic hybrids like Iran's) for politicians to shift in and out of power, but the political resurrection of disgraced leaders seems particularly common in the turbulent Middle East, where few heads of state set such a low bar that their successors can't perform even worse -- leading to reassessment and career revival. Hence, two-time Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto probably would be holding the same post today, despite being chased out of office twice amid allegations of corruption, if she hadn't been assassinated in 2007; her husband subsequently was elected in her stead. Meanwhile, Iraq's Iyad Allawi, the country's first prime minister following the ouster of Saddam Hussein, is once again a political force after his party surged in last week's provincial elections, and he could soon be a serious challenger for Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.