ARBIL, Iraq - A United Nations report on Iraq's human-rights situation has provoked mixed reactions in the northern Kurdistan region. Officials accuse the UN of "exaggeration and inaccuracy" while human rights activists say the "actual extent of...
Many people, including many of my students at the Naval Postgraduate School, worry that economic growth in China will make China a formidable competitor to the United States. My students typically raise this concern when we talk about free trade, and they worry about...
In contemplating how and why we got where we are today – stuck in the quagmire of Iraq and faced with a relentless assault on our civil liberties at home – three major failures come to mind, three institutions that imploded under enormous pressure. Like the...
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003, oil was seldom mentioned. Yes, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did describe the country as afloat "on a sea of oil" (which might fund any American war and reconstruction program there); and, yes, on rare...
I have been to many demonstrations in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, even when it was still called "Kings of Israel Square." I was at the legendary "Demonstration of the 400,000" after the Sabra and Shatila massacre (actually, there were around 200,000, which is still...
Updated at 12:56 a.m. EDT, May 8, 2007After a bloody weekend in Iraq, the White House warned Americans to expect more troop casualties and blamed the increase in soldier deaths on a surge of troops used in a 10-week-old security crackdown in Baghdad. Meanwhile, the...
TEHRAN, Iran As economic sanctions are applied to this country for its nuclear activities, hardliners in the government are getting strengthened and successfully demanding even harsher curbs on individual liberties. The sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security...
Updated at 12:45 a.m. EDT, May 7, 2007At least 118 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 134 Iraqis were wounded in violent attacks today; the largest a bombing in Bagdad that killed dozens. Twelve U.S. servicemembers were also reported killed, nine of them died today....
The row over the removal of a statue of a Soviet soldier in Estonia is another bit of evidence why major powers should never ally themselves with small, powerless countries. By the second day, Estonian officials were calling for the European Union to consider the...
The National Security Act of 1947 created the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, making said DCI responsible for providing "timely, objective, independent of political considerations" intelligence, "based upon all sources available to the intelligence...
