Egypt’s rocky transition to democracy has been further complicated by a judicial ruling today that dissolved parliament and sets the stage for renewed public protests and intensifying political struggle. A presidential runoff election is scheduled to begin Saturday, but the next president is likely to inherit a country with few …
While the Obama Administration remains wedded to the diplomatic engagement of Iran, Iran remains wedded to terrorism, including plots against U.S. diplomats. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that U.S. officials are accumulating mounting evidence that Iran ordered terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomats stationed in Azerbaijan, as well as …
The United States joined many Western nations in expelling Syrian diplomats yesterday in a coordinated reprimand of the Syrian government, which has stepped up its bloody repression of its own people. Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and Australia also joined a growing list of countries that …
Iran once again has refuted optimistic predictions that meaningful progress would be made on the core issues at stake in the on-again, off-again nuclear negotiations. In two days of talks in Baghdad, Tehran rejected the Western proposal for resolving the nuclear impasse and agreed only to continue the talks in …
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 …
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), …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
