US Firms Fear Blowback on Ports Debacle

U.S. lawmakers who killed a deal that would have transferred management of terminals in six U.S. ports to an Arab company say they will forge ahead with legislation targeting foreign ownership of critical U.S sectors. The plans sent shockwaves through U.S. business...

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Mass Casualties in Collapse of Port Deal

Pres. George W. Bush's fast-waning political authority is far and away the biggest immediate casualty in what the Wall Street Journal Friday called "a debacle of the first order." But the U.S. "war on terror" may also have suffered a major blow from what is widely...

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Gen. Pace to Troops: Don’t Nuke Iran

At the luncheon of the National Press Club on Feb. 17, 2006, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, was asked by his interviewer, John Donnelly: "Should people in the U.S. military disobey orders that they believe are illegal?" Pace's response:...

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Wasted Chances and
Dire Portents

When future historians start to discuss the first decade of the 21st century and the dramatic events that unfolded in that era, starting with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, they will probably try to draw the outlines of the...

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Dubai and Demagoguery

Americans are going to regret going into one of their periodic fits of xenophobic hysteria – this time over the Dubai port management issue – as the Islamists chalk up an important propaganda victory in their campaign to alienate the Muslim world from the...

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Disintegrating Iraqi Sovereignty

You know things are going badly indeed in Iraq when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad chooses to use an image – Pandora's box – previously wielded only by that critic of the Iraq War, French President Jacques Chirac. Back in September 2004, Chirac compared...

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China Uneasy Over US Nuclear Policies

BEIJING - With the dispute over Iran's controversial nuclear program moving this week to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the stage is set for a perilous confrontation between the Islamic republic and the international community – a showdown that not...

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How I Stopped Worrying…

So what should the United States and the West do about Iran's effort to acquire nuclear technology and (almost certainly) eventually a nuclear weapon? Kenneth Waltz has convinced me that for the sake of reduction of conflict and war, the best thing we can do is –...

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Backtalk, March 9, 2006

Is the IOB DOA? As the originator of the "Iran Oil Bourse" I hope you can spare me some space to comment in relation to Ms. Berg's recent articles. The original concept five or so years ago was not of an "Iran Oil Bourse" but of a "Middle East Energy Exchange"...

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