Leftists for Occupation

Even with mainstream reports that American troops are slaughtering Iraqi civilians, there are still plenty of lefties in the United States who cannot unify behind a call for an immediate and unconditional withdraw of occupation forces from Iraq. Fortunately, the majority of Americans understand that the U.S. presence in region is only contributing to the [...]

Countless My Lais in Iraq

The media feeding frenzy around what has been referred to as “Iraq’s My Lai” has become frenetic. Focus on U.S. Marines slaughtering at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November is reminiscent of the media spasm around the “scandal” of Abu Ghraib during April and May 2004. Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media [...]

The Tangled Web
of American ‘Intelligence’

In recent months, among other uproars and scandals, Americans learned that the Defense Department has been collecting intelligence on and tracking domestic antiwar activists; that, since 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) has had a presidentially authorized, law-breaking, warrantless surveillance program to listen in on the international phone calls of possibly tens of thousands [...]

Missed Opportunities
(Partial List)

“The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity!” – this phrase, coined by Abba Eban, has become a byword. It also illustrates a wise Talmudic saying: “He who finds fault in others (really) finds his own faults.” No doubt, from the beginning of the conflict, the Palestinians have missed opportunities. But these [...]

Hamas Faces a Presidential Revolution

JERUSALEM – Mahmoud Abbas does not fall into the category of outgoing, charismatic leaders with a penchant for bold political initiatives. Gray, circumspect, and technocratic are the adjectives often chosen to describe him. But the Palestinian president is now in the midst of possibly the greatest gamble of his long political career. It is [...]

Badr Groups Move From Troubled Past to Uncertain Future

With Muhammad Zaher BAGHDAD – It could be instructive to recall that the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its armed wing, the Badr Corps, arose from a conference of Iraqi opposition parties called in Iran in 1982. The Supreme of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) was a breakaway [...]

Bad Month in Afghanistan May Delay US Drawdown

By just about any measure, May has been a bad month for U.S. policy in Afghanistan. It began with a warning by a shopkeeper in a small-town bazaar in the Pashtun southern part of the country to the visiting commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, duly recorded by the New [...]

Faux ‘Terrorism’

As our government concentrates on fighting a "war on terrorism" in the distant battlefields of Iraq, what about the real war on terrorism – the effort to track down and neutralize al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S.? After all, that last warning from Osama bin Laden, in which he implied that another 9/11 is in the [...]

Khamenei in Control
and Ready to ‘Haggle’

For months, the attention of the U.S. news media, pundits, and elected officials has been riveted on the aims of ultraconservative Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. President George W. Bush in particular has invoked Ahmadinejad’s alleged drive for nuclear weapons and rhetoric about Israel to justify U.S. isolation and pressure on the regime. [...]

The Best Congress
Money Can Buy

Ehud Olmert – who assumed the office of prime minister of Israel earlier this month – has just addressed a joint session of what some cynics have been referring to lately as “The Best Congress Money Can Buy.” That’s the same Congress where House members voted overwhelmingly (361-37) the day before Olmert’s address for a [...]