Syria’s “Arab Spring,” long delayed by barbaric repression, is now rapidly deteriorating into a bloody civil war. The Bashar al-Assad regime’s stubborn rejection of political compromise and its brutal suppression of the opposition has led increasing numbers of Syrians to take up arms against the regime. They have been joined by a small but growing stream of foreign Islamist militants who have flocked to Syria like moths to a flame. The Assad regime has been targeted by a series of suicide bombings carried out by the Al-Nusra Front to Protect …
Iran is resorting to its usual negotiating tactics on the nuclear issue: Slip away from its commitments under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and slide by international efforts to halt its nuclear weapons program. Yesterday, Iranian negotiators ended two days of talks with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is charged with verifying compliance with the nonproliferation treaty. Although the meetings failed to resolve the standoff over Tehran’s longstanding failure to fully cooperate with the IAEA, Iran’s negotiators played up the results as “very constructive.” The chief outcome …
After more than three years in office, the Obama Administration still is blaming the Bush Administration for its own difficulties. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden made yet another attempt to pass the buck, claiming that the Bush Administration’s Iran policy was flawed and left the U.S. in an isolated position before the Obama Administration rectified the problem: By going the extra diplomatic mile, presenting Iran with a clear choice, we demonstrated to the region and the world that Iran is the problem, not the United States.… When we took …
Yesterday, U.S. national security officials announced that the CIA and other U.S. agencies, working with foreign intelligence services, had uncovered and disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to bomb civilian aircraft. The terrorist operation, hatched by the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has launched several high-profile attacks in the past, involved an improved version of the “underwear bomb” that was built without metal parts to make it more difficult to detect. The sophisticated bomb is believed to have been built by Ibrahim al-Asiri, an accomplished AQAP bomb maker responsible …
After several weeks of continuous carnage, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that “If the regime’s intransigence continues, the international community is going to have to admit defeat.” But the “international community”—which often amounts to little more than an empty euphemism on many critical issues—remains divided. Russia, China, and Iran continue to support the Assad dictatorship, which blatantly violates the Annan plan on a daily basis. Moreover, Moscow diplomatically protects the Assad regime by blocking strong action at the U.N. Security Council. Despite the U.N.’s obvious failure to stem …
The former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency made news yesterday by blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu’s government for exaggerating the effectiveness of a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Yuval Diskin, who retired last year after Netanyahu failed to renew his term in office, cast doubt on Netanyahu’s leadership: “I fear very much that these are not the people I’d want at the wheel.” What to make of this bitter political attack? First of all, it is a symptom of Israel’s increasingly polarized political environment in …
The long-moribund diplomatic talks on Iran’s nuclear program are slated to resume today in Istanbul between Iran and the P5-plus-1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany). There is little reason to expect a diplomatic breakthrough that will bring Tehran into compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. Although Iranian diplomats have vaguely promised that they will unveil a new diplomatic initiative, it is likely to be little more than a ploy to buy time, ease sanctions, and drive wedges in the fragile …
A delegation of officials from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood met with White House officials Wednesday, according to a White House spokesman who stated that “we have broadened our engagement to include new and emerging political parties and actors.” The Muslim Brotherhood, long banned in Egypt after it sought to assassinate Egypt’s President Nasser in the 1950s, is poised to dominate Egypt’s new government after it emerged as the biggest winner in Egypt’s recent parliamentary elections. The Obama Administration has bent over backwards to demonstrate its good intentions toward the anti-Western Islamist …
Iran continues to make steady progress in stockpiling supplies of increasingly highly enriched uranium far above the quantities that it needs for its civilian nuclear program. Yet the Obama Administration maintains that Tehran has not yet decided whether to build a nuclear weapon. This despite the fact that Iran continues to stonewall the investigations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), defy multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, and shrug off a growing list of international sanctions. The Obama Administration’s optimistic reading of the state of Iran’s nuclear program is based …
Details are still emerging on the killings of 16 Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier in Kandahar province. U.S. officials call it an isolated incident in which one rogue soldier acted alone. Obviously if the initial reports are true, this is a horrifying event that will shake how Americans and the world at large view U.S. commitment to that war effort. As appalling as this incident may be and as gruesome as the details to come may prove, however, any decision on this war must be made strictly on national …
