Jim Lobe

With the U.S. intelligence community agreed that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made this country less safe from terrorist threats, President George W. Bush appears now to be facing a growing revolt among top military commanders who say U.S. ground forces are stretched close to the breaking point. According to Monday’s Los Angeles … Continue reading “Iraq, Overstretched Army Bring Bush New Grief”

Human and civil rights groups have broadly denounced a compromise deal on the application of the Geneva Conventions to detainees in the “global war on terror” worked out between the White House and a group of rebellious Republican senators whose efforts have been backed until now by their Democratic colleagues. While the deal, the product … Continue reading “Groups Denounce Deal on Detainee Rights”

If you’re feeling increasingly confused about whether the administration of President George W. Bush is determined to go to war with Iran or whether it is instead truly committed to a diplomatic process with its European allies to reach some kind of modus vivendi, you’re not alone. On the one hand, a growing number of … Continue reading “Iran War, Diplomacy on Parallel Tracks”

While his handlers worked assiduously Tuesday to ensure that U.S. President George W. Bush did not run into his Iranian nemesis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the corridors of the UN, a legendary fixer for the Bush family announced that the White House had cleared him to meet with a “high representative” of Tehran’s government. Former Secretary … Continue reading “Bush Clears Task Force
to Meet With Iranians”

Complaints involving anti-Muslim discrimination, harassment, and violence jumped over 30 percent in 2005 compared to 2004, according to a new report released here Monday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim organization. A total of 1,972 such incidents were reported in 2005. That was the highest number since CAIR began reporting … Continue reading “Group Finds Jump in Anti-Muslim Incidents”

Two years before the 2008 presidential election, Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, is trying desperately to grab the national spotlight by declaring he’d be a lot tougher than George W. Bush in prosecuting what he calls "World War III." In the latest in a series of recent presentations and … Continue reading “Gingrich Off His Meds Again?”

What looked like a virtually sure thing just one month ago – Senate confirmation of the Bush administration’s controversial ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton – is suddenly looking unexpectedly shaky. Last week’s eleventh-hour request by moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee put off its vote … Continue reading “Time Running Out on Bolton Nomination”

To consider whether U.S. President George W. Bush is winning his “global war on terror” (GWOT) five years after al-Qaeda’s devastating 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, one has only to look at the news of the past few days. In Afghanistan, where the war began, NATO and U.S. forces are struggling to … Continue reading “Five Years In, Bush Is Losing Terror War”

Five years after 9/11, the U.S. public is considerably less enthusiastic about projecting military power abroad, according to a major new survey, the first of a spate of polls that are likely to released in the run-up to Monday’s fifth anniversary of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The survey, conducted by the … Continue reading “Poll Finds Waning Faith in Intervention”

In a major victory for the State Department and career military lawyers, the Pentagon Wednesday released a new Army field manual that requires all detainees held by the U.S. military, including suspected terrorists, to be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. At the same time, President George W. Bush announced that 14 so-called "high-value detainees" … Continue reading “Bush Yields to Geneva Conventions on Detainees”