Israel is often viewed by Washington politicians as the most "stable" ally in the Middle East. But stability from the American perspective can mean many things. Lead amongst them is that the "ally" must be unconditionally loyal to the diktats of...
Shelling in Iraq Province Lifts Casualty Toll to 19 Killed, 86 Wounded
Top Three Media Lies About the Syrian Peace Talks
The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the "Geneva II" Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace,...
Switching Sides in Syria? Unbelievable, but Not Unprecedented
The perfectly timed release of photographic evidence of torture and killing on the part of the Syrian government on the very eve of the Geneva II peace talks may or may not be authentic. There have been atrocities on both sides, and these pictures could be evidence of...
The Snowden Effect and the Liberal Implosion
We haven’t seen anything like this since the Vietnam war era: an administration caught red-handed illegally and systematically spying on Americans in the midst of an increasingly unpopular war. At that time, too, the political class was badly divided, with the...
More Executions, Clashes, and Attacks for Iraq: 38 Killed, 51 Wounded
The speaker of parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, is on a trip to Washington to meet with U.S. leaders. The top Sunni politician said that the Sunnis are hoping the situation in Anbar province will force Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to give greater power to...
Presidential Placebo
When President Obama chose a Friday before a three-day holiday weekend to address a matter as profound as the NSA spying scandal, I suspected he would raise issues that he hoped the media would ignore. That’s because the Reagan White House did a study in the early...
Top Israel Lobby Group Loses Battle on Iran, But War Not Over
Eight years ago, Stephen Rosen, then a top official at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and well-known around Washington for his aggressiveness, hawkish views, and political smarts, was asked by Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker magazine whether...
The Endless Arms Race: Despite Promises, New Nuclear Weapons Are On the Way
It’s heartening to see that an agreement has been reached to ensure that Iran honors its commitment, made when it signed the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to forgo developing nuclear weapons. But what about the other key part of the NPT, Article VI,...