Israel's 22-day war in the Gaza Strip may have saved the Labor Party of Defense Minister Ehud Barak from the indignity of falling to single-digit representation in the Knesset in next month's elections, but recent polls suggest it has also assured that the next...
Iraq FM: Obama Policy Will Be One of ‘Continuity’
The Iraqi government is quite satisfied that President Barack Obama will not make any dramatic moves to withdraw troops in 2009, in spite of his campaign promise to have all American troops out of the nation within 16 months of taking office. "We are sure that the...
Report: Western Diplomats Try to Prevent Iran From Adding to Uranium Supplies
With Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant scheduled to begin operation sometime this year, the nation's ongoing enrichment program is running low on its supplies of raw uranium, which the gas-graphite reactor requires to be enriched to low levels to use. The Times is...
President Obama Orders Pakistan Drone Attacks
A pair of US drone strikes in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies of Pakistan killed 22 people today. Many of them appear to have been militants, but at least four of them were also children. The attacks, the first of President Obama's fledgling...
Commandant Presses for Marines to Move From Iraq to Afghanistan
"The time is right for Marines to leave Iraq," US Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway told reporters today, complaining that the situation in Iraq is "a nation-building kind of environment" and "that is not what we do." Instead Conway believes the roughly...
At Least 20 Killed in Twin US Attacks in Waziristan
A pair of missile strikes from American drones into Pakistan's North and South Waziristan Agencies have killed at least 20 people, and injured an unknown number of others. This marks the first cross-border attack by US forces since President Obama took office on...
At Least 67 Civilians Killed in Shelling of Sri Lanka’s “Safe Zone”
The Sri Lankan military continues to press its advantage in the long-standing conflict against the separatist north, and while they seem to be gaining considerable momentum, an increasingly bloody military victory seems likely to complicate attempts to quiet the...
The Guantánamo Challenge
Even if President Obama's order to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay will have at best a superficial effect on America's detention program, the news of its eventual closure was greeted by a worldwide expression of relief. In another year, one of America's most...
Obama Promises US ‘Will Not Torture’ Detainees
Promising that "a new era of American leadership is at hand," President Barack Obama has promised that the United States "will not torture" detainees. A series of presidential orders will outlaw rendition flights, order the closings of the CIA's "black sites," and...
Two Days After Inauguration: Is Obama’s Iraq Timetable Already Dead?
As recently as yesterday, Obama aides were treating the president's campaign promise for a 16-month timetable to withdraw from Iraq as a working plan. It didn't take long for what many voters assumed was a firm commitment to become, in the parlance of the previous...