Iraqi leaders promised that Shi’ite militias would submit to government authority and accept U.S. involvement. The pledge comes a day after the militiamen said they would quit the war against the Islamic State militants over U.S. airstrikes in the Tikrit operation. Among the leaders was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who asked the militias to coordinate their efforts with government forces. Some of the militias may not have intended participating in the boycott at all.

The forces that do not want a U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, nor any U.S. detente with Iran, are impressive. Among them are the Israelis and their powerful lobby AIPAC, the Saudis and their Sunni allies on the Persian Gulf, a near unanimity of Republicans and a...

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Fifteen to 20 years ago, a canny friend of mine assured me that I would know I was in a different world when the Europeans said no to Washington. I’ve been waiting all this time and last week it seemed as if the moment had...

Yesterday a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia bombed targets across Yemen in an attempt to reverse recent gains by Shiite rebels. The Saudi’s also announced that 150,000 soldiers had been deployed in anticipation of a possible ground invasion. It’s all...

Saudi Arabia's US-backed aggression against the sovereignty of Yemen is a textbook example of how local conflicts are internationalized – and become tripwires for regional wars and even global conflagrations. Like Libya, Yemen is yet another Middle Eastern country...

On March 23 over at Volokh Conspiracy, law professor Ilya Somin wrote about a lawsuit against Henderson, Nevada police officers who allegedly forced a family to let them into their home for hours while scoping out a neighbor's domestic disturbance standoff back in...

Shi’ite militias have pulled back from the Tikrit operation. The army’s special forces and federal police are now leading the final push on the city instead. The drawdown was a condition for U.S. airstrikes, as was the demand for a coherent plan of attack. Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command, said the militias were undermining the operation.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month about the parameters of the secret negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear weapons and economic sanctions, how did he know what the negotiators were considering?...

The Civil War in Yemen is rapidly expanding. We have been forced to close our embassy and military base located there. It is now clear that Obama’s optimism for fighting terrorism in Yemen was misplaced. It hardly sets a standard for dealing with constant...

The last days of the campaign sounded an awful lot like the Jim Crow South, when African Americans had officially won the right to vote but still faced massive discrimination. On election morning, a powerful white official running for re-election urged his followers...