al-Sadr and Sunni leaders, including those of results. The aim is to create a Sunni-Shi'ite occupation. The fear is that Muqtada could still be drawn into a war of his own against the US.
- Petraeus, the US military commander in Iraq and a counterinsurgency specialist, into a figure of military god, just to sell a dubious policy - the more outspoken Shi'ite clerics, against the occupation, against the United States' "puppet" government in Baghdad, and, surprisingly, against resistance and terrorism, and has softened his withdrawal, he tells
But America's greatest threat, Tehran is even scarier is competent to handle crises overseas. - dialogue in Baghdad, one of Iran's main objectives government in Iraq. Tehran is also mindful that no only, there is the potential for the talks to develop into broader, follow-up dialogue.
- chess players, and recent geopolitical setbacks Iranians have abandoned the game. Real conflict, however, is not a chessboard - the pawns have an unpleasant tendency to move on their own. and may well do so again.
- Pakistan's tribal agencies, the templates of the war in Afghanistan shifted - almost unnoticed. A stroke one of the US's most powerful weapons. Now, fold, adversarial lines are being redrawn. It's no marks a new turn in the Taliban's insurgency. already gained control, the Taliban, with help from collaborators in the Afghan administration, will step up attacks in towns and cities. - - Such a one is needed to reunite the ummah. - Pepe September 11, 2001, rearranged the geopolitics of resources to the region. But a rejuvenated Russia is reclaiming some of its old turf, and Washington is looking south for support, using occupied Afghanistan as a bridge. But a lot the counterinsurgency campaign, yet it remains one criminality of growing opium, farmers' economic needs, fundraising for the Taliban-led insurgency, and state complicity are all interlinked. - William Fallon, then the Bush administration's nominee to head Central Command, placed his job on Persian Gulf from two to three. By "putting the for the United States' engagement, not intimidation, of Iran. - Gareth Porter great American republic is in decline, just as many of the same reasons. But how to prevent the be enough; the entire imperial system, including complex, must be dismantled, at home and abroad. - strategy. This is where the resolution of the Iran and the US play a key role. Hence Baghdad, which Tehran has embraced, but at the expense of alienating Russia even further. - Sunnis see this as another slap in the face. With Maliki or lose his job, the Sunnis are poised to hasten his departure. - Sami jewel of the Middle East, al-Mustansariya University struggles on amid the chaos of Baghdad. the hope it will help them find jobs outside Iraq. would be more than a teacher's life is worth. - setback for the insurgency in Afghanistan, at least in the short term. Under Dadullah, the Haqqani - with his plan for 30,000 suicide bombers - could be back in favor. - Syed some Western contingents in Afghanistan, the all-out effort to seek and destroy Taliban. the use of bullets and bombs. The Taliban are likely to outlast them, though. - justified or not, is a waste of time. Critics may well argue that the Koran is an incoherent muddle, threats of violence from fanatics, but the argument is beside the point. A religion is not a text but a life. But she has no control over the military, let alone the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And even the top believe, does not have the "privilege" to issue a occupation in Iraq to an abrupt end. Rather, spiritual. It's as simple as that. "Terror's lobbyists" are fighting back. - Jim does not stop uranium enrichment, European leaders find themselves in a spot. They have to support the sanctions, yet at the same time find end the current lose-lose game being played. - military offensives, but as yet the battlefield in clashes. Politicians in Kabul have raised the Taliban. But NATO is braced for a fight against a rag-tag insurgency that is fast morphing, with much help from the poppy fields, into a a prosperous, middle-class neighborhood of Baghdad near the Tigris, with a large Christian population. Now it's a favorite stomping ground of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and a vortex of ethnic and confessional cleansing. The few remaining Islam or pay a US$1,600 fee. Even then, the chances of being killed are high. - The old threats are history, but the paramilitaries remain, with new mandates - to Thailand-Myanmar border and, more controversially, to suppress insurgency in the measures on board vessels. But they have been less in ports, making attacks ever more likely. - Now it says the fervently anti-Iranian Sunni insurgents are being equipped by Iran, and attempts to kidnap senior Iranian officials in Iraq. In this fantasy world, constructed to impress American voters, in which failures are sold as successes, it is impossible to devise sensible policies. Iraq has now joined the list of small wars that inflict extraordinary damage on the occupiers. - Patrick The almost 3 million people in Sadr City, an immense Shi'ite slum in eastern Baghdad of ramshackle one-story buildings covered with dust, exude a resignation born of sadness. But at least they feel safe, Hussein al-Motery of the municipality tells Pepe Escobar. Unless, of course, Amrika attempts the Pentagon dream of smashing the place into submission. match being played in Baghdad between the forces of Good and Evil. Iran's sudden decision to deport Afghan refugees - 44,000 in limited resources. The move also serves as a sharp reminder of Iran's destabilizing ability in its neighbor's affairs. - Haroun Mir politics. And it highlights the long-standing fascination that al-Qaeda and society, and the access they could provide al-Qaeda. - Michael Scheuer now yearning for an ersatz Saddam Hussein. For many, former premier Iyad Allawi is just such a man. "We have cooperation with all national groups," Allawi's also has the support of the US. (May 8, '07) Since the invasion of Iraq, US officials have melded economic and military policy into a single fatal brew, driven by dreams of controlling the country's fabulous potential oil wealth. The key "benchmark", therefore, that the oil law forced on it by the Bush administration. Widespread opposition to the law, though, could result in escalating conflict that leaves the oil out of the United States' reach. - Michael Schwartz (May interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe are a response to a danger from Iran. Tehran, though, might be underestimating the new winds in the sail of US-European Union relations, given the right-wing drift of European politics in Germany and France. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (May State Condoleezza Rice, relations between the two countries have been turned on their head. The United States' anti-Syria rhetoric is being replaced by the grudging acceptance that Damascus, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia, has a lot to offer on Iraq. - Sami Moubayed (May 7, "bump" into the US during the conference on Iraq. All the same, Washington was uranium-enrichment activities. And the Iranians left their own message. If the US officially asks for talks with Iran, they will be considered. But these will have to be formal talks, not an exchange on the sidelines of Adonis, the only Arabic writer to make the Nobel Prize short list, claims that the Arabs, like the Sumerians and Greeks before them, are extinct, for their culture "no longer has a creative capacity, and willingness of Arabs to kill themselves to inflict harm on their enemies. the jugular of the Pakistani military establishment. The suspension of Chief in January were said to be endangering the lives of US soldiers in the country. On the contrary, the United States' refusal to release the captives indicates situation in Iraq. Iran is having none of it. - Yet journalist back to partition in 1949. Anyone wanting to know the parameters of the "long war" against militant Islam need look no further. - Sreeram Chaulia All that the Sadrists want is a timetable for a US withdrawal from Iraq, says Nasr al-Roubaie, Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's top man in government. This struggle, he tells Pepe Escobar, is both "peaceful uniting Sadrists and Sunni nationalists. But whatever happens, Muqtada remains under way in Egypt will be on the interaction between Iran and the US, and over Tehran's concerns that it might be ambushed by the US over its nuclear program. But Iraq is the core issue, and Iran has the opportunity to emphasize its pivotal role in defining that country's future. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi For the first time in the 85-year history of the Turkish republic, a ruling arbiter. At the same time, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is avoiding outright confrontation with the military. Having called early parliamentary polls, Erdogan can strengthen his position, but the underlying tension will not disappear overnight. The uncertainty diminishes Turkey's ability to play an effective role in the stabilization of Iraq and the turbulent region. - M K called the Osprey, but unlike the formidable bird of prey after which it's named, the V-22 helicopter-plane has trouble getting off the ground, let alone doing in September. (May 3, '07) is a devout Kuwaiti cleric and gifted poet and educator. Yet his own government banned his activities, and the US has branded him a supporter and financier of global terror. His dense religious rhetoric, typical of Salafi clerics, more message of extremist jihad. (May 3, '07) of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, the Bush administration points out that the president never used those words. He didn't: he said the "mission continues". News that Abu al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, had been Baghdad. The joy might be premature, as the death has not been confirmed. And true or not, it will make no difference. A thousand Masris are waiting in the wings, and al-Qaeda's strategy of non-stop bombings to keep inciting Sunnis to attack Shi'ites won't change. - Pepe Escobar region. Now Washington is stoking Azeri dreams of unification as part of its undeclared psy-war with Iran. But two can play that game, as Tehran pointedly any serious help from the Athenians - er, Americans. - Dmitry Shlapentokh more terrorists than have been killed or captured by military means, it appears local agencies and less into conventional war fighting. - Alan Boyd Red Zone - that is, everything outside "Fortress USA", the Green Zone. This is the first of his unembedded, non-Kevlar-protected, bodyguardless reports. Army militia, Escobar witnesses the grand-scale mayhem and the minutiae of misery of Baghdad. In the deadly daily embrace of the Red Zone, the surreal to find the missing limbs of their dead. (May Philippines, the Manila media have abandoned the tenets of objective journalism. Their unquestioning repetition of the military's propaganda is pushing the island of Mindanao closer to another all-out war. - Herbert province of Herat were Taliban insurgents. Thousands of people who took to the streets in the area believe that many of the dead are civilians.
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