The Israeli offensive against Iran until now, purely polemical morphed into military action the moment the IDF crossed the border into Lebanon and took on Hezbollah. As our regular readers know, this turn of events was predicted in this space two months...
Lebanese Tremors Rock Syria
DAMASCUS - Syrians are outraged over Israeli air strikes in Lebanon that have killed scores of civilians and closed down Beirut's international airport. Early Thursday morning, Israeli air strikes targeted the new Rafiq al-Hariri international airport. Israeli naval...
Iran Poll Shows Strong Nationalism, Anti-US Sentiment
While only one in four Iranians believe that developing nuclear weapons should be their government's most important long-term goal, more than half say that economic hardship should not deter the country from pursuing its nuclear program, according to a new survey...
Bush Faces Major Choice Amid Israeli Escalation
The sudden opening Wednesday by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia of a second front in Israel's ongoing campaign against Hamas militants in Gaza presents the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush with an escalating crisis that, until now, it has preferred to...
Gathering the Pieces After the Mumbai Blasts
NEW DELHI - As the death toll continues to mount in Mumbai's ghastly serial bomb attacks, it is becoming clear that India is witnessing a human tragedy of the same dimensions as the Madrid train bombings of March 2004, in which 192 people lost their lives. The...
Terror’s New Faces
Iraq and Afghanistan have two new leaders, but the strategy of terrorism is the same that was so fanatically pursued by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They are Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Misri, who reportedly replaced Zarqawi in Iraq, and the second one is Mullah Dadullah...
Iraqis Call for Timetable, America Cracks Down
Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld paid an unannounced visit to Baghdad today, after telling reporters the Iraqi government is not yet ready to determine the pace of U.S. troop reductions. "We haven't gotten to that point," he said. So much for Iraqi sovereignty. It's...
US Gets a ‘Dose of Its Own Medicine’ From China
UNITED NATIONS - The 15-member Security Council, the only UN body wielding power to impose mandatory sanctions on the organization's 192 member states, is unable to help contain two ongoing crises primarily because of threatened vetoes by China and the United States....
The End of the Cowboy Era
The era of "Cowboy Diplomacy" is over, writes Time magazine. The Bush Doctrine "The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons" is being defied by Iran's Ahmadinejad and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, with impunity. The...
US Democracy Crusade Falls by the Wayside
"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof." So spoke U.S. President George W. Bush in his second inaugural address last January, vowing to help build democratic institutions and strengthen...


