Middle East and Africa | Talks in trouble

What happens to Gaza after the war?

No one wants responsibility for running and rebuilding the ruined enclave

Photograph: AFP
|MANAMA

THE SMILES were forced, the bonhomie fake. In recent years the Manama Dialogue, an annual security pow-wow in Bahrain, has been focused on the threat from Iran and its regional proxies. Arab and Western officials found much to agree on. “It was just necessary to blame Iran to [be] applauded,” said Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, on a panel at the start of this year’s dialogue. “Today it is going to be a little bit more difficult.”

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