Month: November 2007

Updated at 11:55 p.m. EST, Nov. 30, 2007An otherwise quiet prayer day was marked by the detention of dozens of people associated with a Sunni leader. Five U.S. soldiers were injured during a controlled detonation of a car bomb found at the politician’s Baghdad office. Two U.S soldiers were killed in separate incidents elsewhere. Overall, … Continue reading “Friday: 2 U.S. Soldiers, 21 Iraqis Killed; 9 Iraqis Wounded; 30 Iraqis Kidnapped”

RAMADI, Iraq – A semblance of calm belies an undercurrent of violence, detentions and fear across Iraq’s volatile Anbar province. The province – which occupies one-third of Iraq’s geographic area – has been a bane to authorities since the beginning of the occupation. "The Americans talked about our province as the deadliest enemy, and suddenly … Continue reading “A Tenuous ‘Peace’ in Anbar”

Our next president will likely face a Russia led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, determined to stand up to a West that Russians believe played them for fools when they sought to be friends. Americans who think Putin has never been anything but a KGB thug will reject accusations of any U.S. role in causing … Continue reading “Blowback From Moscow”

Whoa, let’s hold those surging horses in check a moment. Violence has lessened in Iraq. That seems to be a fact of the last two months – and, for the Iraqis, a positive one, obviously. What to make of the “good news” from Iraq is another matter entirely, one made harder to assess by the … Continue reading “Catch 22 in Iraq: Why American Troops Can’t Go Home”

Never mind Hillary’s plants or that guitar-strumming singing wannabe pundit, the real news out of the Youtube/CNN GOP slugfest is that John McCain‘s failing, cash-strapped campaign was dealt another heavy blow in his embarrassing tiff with antiwar Republican Ron Paul. As Paul accurately pointed out that we could ameliorate a lot of suffering – including … Continue reading “McCain’s Mangled Metaphor”

Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War (New York: Norton paperback, 2007), 670 pp. Überhawks carelessly toss around the Hitler comparison – Ho Chi Minh was Hitler. Slobodan Milosevic was Hitler. Saddam Hussein was Hitler. Now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler. Yet it is nonsense to compare the leaders of small, poor, and underdeveloped Third … Continue reading “Khrushchev’s Cold War“

Updated at 11:57 p.m. EST, Nov. 29, 2007At least 30 Iraqis were killed and 48 more were wounded in the latest attacks. In Baghdad, over 100 tribal chiefs staged a peaceful protest over the deteriorating conditions in Diyala province. Also, an MND-B soldier was killed during a small arms attack in western Baghdad, and a … Continue reading “Thursday: 2 GIs, 30 Iraqis Killed; 48 Iraqis Wounded”

GAZA CITY – As Sunday dawns in Gaza City the traditional Islamic call to prayer mingles melodically with church bells. Side by side, mosque and church doors swing open, welcoming the faithful. Greetings are eagerly exchanged. The October kidnapping and murder of Rami Ayyad, the manager of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore, sent shudders through the … Continue reading “Christians And Muslims Coexist in Gaza”

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland – The Middle East peace conference that began and ended here on this crisp, sunny Tuesday was lean on specifics for a lasting peace deal between Israel and Palestine and the formation of a Palestinian state. Dealing with a timeline for continued talks on "final status" issues, rather than the contentious issues themselves, … Continue reading “Much Ado About Annapolis”

One reason parts of Iraq have quieted down, at least for a while, has received widespread attention: the Sunni split from al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda’s own tactics alienated its base, which is usually a fatal political mistake, and for once we were wise enough not to get in the way of an enemy who was making a … Continue reading “In the Fox’s Lair”