Bush’s Surreal Iran Policy

According to the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," [.pdf] a key judgment of the 16 members of the U.S. intelligence community is that they "judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran...

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Wednesday: 59 Iraqis Killed, 177 Wounded

Updated at 11:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 13, 2007A large triple bombing killed or wounded scores of people in the southern city of Amarah. Meanwhile a smaller blast in Baghdad left over a dozen casualties there. Overall, 59 Iraqis were killed and 177 more were wounded in the...

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Karzai Discredits Democracy in Afghanistan

In a recent speech given at the American-Afghan business conference, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy to the UN, and one of the enthusiastic proponents of using American "hard power" to reorder the Muslim world, finally admitted to the myriad problems facing...

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Bombed If You Do, Bombed If You Don’t

The latest National Intelligence Estimate has been greeted by a mixture of relief and alarm. As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is with much alarm, however, that we see the...

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Stephen Harper’s Index

The Honorable John Manley Chairman, the Manley Committee Formerly, Deputy Prime Minister of Canada No Fixed Address Ottawa, Canada Dear Mr. Manley, Re: A public submission to your committee to advise Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Canada's plan for Afghanistan....

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Education Is the Latest Casualty in Baquba

BAQUBA - The alarming security situation in Diyala province north of Baghdad has killed off much of the education system. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had at first brought hope. Salaries were increased: a newly appointed primary or secondary school teacher was given...

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White House Fought NIE Over an Old Charge

The reported White House resistance to the National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran had abandoned a nuclear weapons program in 2003 was an effort to save a political tactic the George W. Bush administration had been using since early 2004, despite the...

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Chinese, US Attitudes Reflect ‘Hope and Fear’

While the Chinese and U.S. publics and elites hold generally favorable views of each other, distrust between them also persists, according to a new "mirror" survey of both countries released Monday. The survey [.pdf], entitled "Hope & Fear: American...

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Iran, Nukes,
and the ‘Laptop of Death’

The pushback against the recent finding [.pdf] by America's 16 intelligence agencies that puts "high confidence" in their evaluation that Iran stopped its covert nuclear weapons project in 2003 has the Lobby going into overdrive – with (who else?) John...

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