I recently wrote about Karl Rove's gamble that Americans would prefer a Green-Zone version of our world to grim political reality and that, in the process of telling "Green-Zone stories" to the public, it was useful if you could also "Green Zone" history –...
The Cabal, Outed
The looming conflict between Iran and the United States has a nightmarish quality about it: it is like one of those dreams in which a horrific series of events is endlessly reenacted, while the dreamer is powerless to stop it. You scream and nothing comes out. It is a...
End of Delusions
Soccer Disaster Causes Political Epiphany It may seem incongruous that the disaster that befell the Serbia-Montenegro soccer squad at the 2006 FIFA World Cup has caused more irritation than an ongoing string of political humiliations Serbia has suffered, but one has...
Give Iran Positive Incentives to Halt Its Nuclear Program
The United Nations Security Council recently sent Iran a package of incentives to encourage that nation to halt its nuclear program. The proposals included selling Iran light-water nuclear technology, civilian aircraft, and spare parts. Although the United States...
Defying US Deadline, Iran Recalls an EU Stall
Iran's announcement that it will not respond to the formal negotiating offer from the six powers until late August was both an expression of confidence and a bit of payback for European stalling in responding to Iran in 2005. By refusing to comply with a June 29...
Pentagon Resists Ban on ‘Degrading Treatment’
As new reports detail further abuse by the U.S. military of its prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a behind-the-scenes battle is being fought between the U.S. Departments of State and Defense about whether a key section of the Geneva Conventions should be included in...
Saddam’s Execution Likely, Fair Trial Less So
With Omar Abdullah BAGHDAD - The trial of Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein has been wracked with controversy and spectacle. Now entering its final phase, the question for all Iraqis and the world is whether he will be executed for the deaths of 148 Shi'ites,...
Paris Accord, the Sequel
According to numerous reports, President Bush – while at a meeting with leaders of the European Union last week – gave the mullahs an ultimatum: last week. "If Iran's leaders want peace and prosperity and a more hopeful future for their people, they...
Running With the Barbarians
As every political junkie in the country now knows, just before finding himself not indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Karl Rove went to a fundraiser in New Hampshire and launched the Republican campaign for the 2006 midterm elections. Its simple goal...
Intelligence Officers, Learn From History
The truth will out. If you fabricate, or acquiesce in the fabrication of, evidence used to "justify" launching a war of choice, you will have to live with that for the rest of your life. Call me quaint, but having spent 27 years in intelligence on both the...