A day after the Pentagon said that Iran had launched airstrikes on Islamic State militants in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, without confirming the airstrikes, welcomed the new development. Despite the positive reaction, Iranian officials deny the strikes, and the White House continues to resist allowing the Iranians to join the coalition. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was in Brussels asking the world community for more military and reconstruction help.

Poor Anne Applebaum. Every time she writes one of her interchangeable neocon screeds on how Putin is responsible for all the world's evils or why we need to invade this or that country, her mortal enemies – the commenters! – launch an attack. They wonder why we should...

Several bombs were reported in Baghdad and Tuz Khormato, but they failed to leave a dramatic number of casualties. Most of the dead were militants killed in security operations. At least 205 people were killed and 29 more were wounded.

As U.S. forces withdraw from parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban is making gains in several areas of the country. The Afghan police and army are slowly giving way, despite the United States spending 13 years and tens of billions of dollars training those forces. When...

November closed with fewer reported deaths than did October, but at least 5,640 killed and 2,574 wounded during the month. Our analysis is below. On Monday, at least 465 were killed and 25 more were wounded, mostly in airstrikes and battles.

So you worry that the Islamist fanatics we're funding in Syria will be no different from the Islamist fanatics we supported during the 1980s in Afghanistan who morphed into Al Qaeda? There's no need to fret, my friend – because science is coming to the rescue! The US...

It seems nobody wants to be Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. The president’s first two Defense Secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both complained bitterly this month about their time in the administration. The president’s National...

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Introduction, Sunday, November 24, 2014: When I scanned the front page of the New York Times one recent morning and spotted this headline, “In a Shift, Obama Extends U.S. Role in Afghan Combat,” I instantly wanted to pick...

At least 110 people were killed and 15 more were wounded, as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi revealed that 50,000 “ghost soldiers” were on the military payroll.

Few militant casualties were reported today. However, at least 40 people were killed. No wounded were reported.