Khody Akhavi

More than seven weeks ago, US media attention on Iraq peaked as Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ray Crocker delivered their much anticipated evaluation of the George W. Bush administration’s "surge strategy" before Congress. By most official and media accounts, security in Baghdad and in surrounding provinces has improved markedly since then, with … Continue reading “What Does Iraq’s ‘Good News’ Really Mean?”

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday declared emergency rule, fired the country’s chief justice, and suspended the constitution, effectively giving him absolute power in a country many U.S. experts warn is spinning out of control. Despite its unhappiness with the recent developments, it appears the George W. Bush administration, which once lauded the Pakistani leader … Continue reading “Bush Bets the Farm on Musharraf”

More than two months after Israeli warplanes conducted a mysterious raid in northeast Syria, there is a growing consensus among U.S. government and independent analysts that the suspicious target was a nuclear facility. But the evidence they are relying upon – a series of satellite photos showing a building and an adjacent pumping station near … Continue reading “Israel’s Strike on Syria Still Raising Questions”

L. Bruce Laingen was working as a senior U.S. Foreign Service officer in Tehran in 1979 when student protesters – caught up in the fervor of Iran’s Islamic Revolution – seized the U.S. embassy and irrevocably changed the course of relations between the two nations. Laingen and 51 other U.S. diplomats endured 444 days in … Continue reading “Tamping the Flames of War With Iran”

with Ali Gharib Right-wing pundit David Horowitz was in rare form during a tightly controlled "public speech" at the George Washington University on Thursday night, decrying the US academic Left as a hateful "lynch mob" who act as apologists for the impending threat of the "Islamo-fascist" jihad. As bodyguards and police loomed on stage and … Continue reading “Welcome to ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’”

A resolution recognizing as "genocide" the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has gained the sponsorship of a majority of members in the US House of Representatives. But it has also drawn heavy criticism from George W. Bush administration officials, who argue that the non-binding and largely … Continue reading “White House Hopes to Avert Major Rift With Turkey”

As with most of the controversies that have embroiled the US in Iraq, the activities of the George W. Bush administration’s mercenary force remained murky and opaque. Enabled by the US State Department, private security firms such as Blackwater USA seemingly occupied a state of legal limbo that allowed their guards to operate with impunity. … Continue reading “Heat Turns Up on Blackwater Inquiry”

With a strong majority of US citizens favoring withdrawal from Iraq within a year and presidential elections set for 2008, Democrats and moderate Republicans continue to face an uphill struggle to force President George W. Bush to change course. But as many Washington insiders have publicly declared, any shift in the White House’s Iraq policy … Continue reading “Three Iraqs Worse Than One?”

He called for more "research" into the unequivocal facts of the Holocaust, said Iranian women were among the freest in the world, and declared that homosexuality did not exist in his country. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad courts controversy wherever he goes, and his visit to New York this week was no exception. Addressing the United … Continue reading “The Man Behind the Iran Curtain”

This past summer, President George W. Bush extended a hand where he never has before, calling for a Middle East conference to find a solution to the long-moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace process. This time, says U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, her boss expects results. Yet as with most of Washington’s diplomatic overtures to the region … Continue reading “Bush Peace Confab a Swan Dive or Belly Flop?”