POLITICS: U.S. Briefing on Iran Discredits the Official Line

The first major effort by the George W. Bush administration to substantiate its case that the Iranian government has been providing weapons to Iraqi Shiites who oppose the occupation undermines the administration's political line by showing that it has been unable to find any real evidence of an Iranian government role.

POLITICS-US: How Neocon Shiite Strategy Led to Sectarian War

The supreme irony of President George W. Bush's campaign to blame Iran for the sectarian civil war in Iraq, as well as attacks on U.S. forces, is that the Shiite militias who started to drive the Sunnis out of the Baghdad area in 2004 and thus precipitated the present sectarian crisis did so with the support of both Iran and the neoconservative U.S. war planners.

POLITICS-US: How Neocon Shiite Strategy Led to Sectarian War

The supreme irony of President George W. Bush's campaign to blame Iran for the sectarian civil war in Iraq, as well as attacks on U.S. forces, is that the Shiite militias who started to drive the Sunnis out of the Baghdad area in 2004 and thus precipitated the present sectarian crisis did so with the support of both Iran and the neoconservative U.S. war planners.

POLITICS: Iran Poses Multiple Problems for Arab Nations

As Iran vies with the United States for dominance in the Middle East, the smaller Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are left with several anxieties - the consequences of a U.S./Israeli military attack on Iran; the rising stock of a Shiite country that has long posed a religio-ideological threat; and sectarian strife in Sunni-ruled countries with significant Shiite communities.

SRI LANKA: Donor Threats Unlikely to Stop War Machine

Will the Sri Lankan government forego recent military gains in Tamil rebel-held areas of the island and heed the advice of donors to resume dialogue with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)?

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Dying, or More Alive than Ever?

There are plenty of prophets of doom foretelling the death, or at least a deep crisis, of the World Social Forum (WSF), based on reports about organisational problems and a great fall in numbers at the 7th WSF, held in Nairobi in January.

EGYPT: Cairo Backs U.S. Against Popular Disapproval

During her visit to the region earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice secured the support of Cairo and other "moderate" Arab capitals for Washington's new strategy in Iraq announced by U.S. President George Bush in mid-January.

POLITICS: Israeli Realism on Iran Belies Threat Rhetoric

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared last week at the Herzliya conference that Israel could not risk another "existential threat" such as the Nazi holocaust, he was repeating what has become the dominant theme in Israel's campaign against Iran - that it cannot tolerate an Iran with the technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons, because Iran is fanatically committed to the physical destruction of Israel.

POLITICS: What if Iran Suspends? A Western Dilemma

As the Feb. 21 deadline for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme fast approaches, both Iran and the West are scrambling to prepare themselves for all possible moves by the other side.

POLITICS-US: Mideast Strategy Increasingly Targets Iran

Six months after last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran has become the George W. Bush administration's "Public Enemy Number One", against which its Middle East strategy is increasingly focused, according to one of the U.S.'s leading experts on the Gulf.

DEVELOPMENT: Latin America Has Tips for ASEAN Charter

Over the last two months, South America and South-East Asia have taken huge steps forward towards creating two distinct regional blocs. But the contrasting principles in their respective blueprints for integration reflect the different political and economic philosophies driving the integration plans.

US/IRAN: Ahmadinejad Feels Economic Heat

The arrests by a U.S. military unit of six Iranians in Erbil, Iraq and several others in Baghdad earlier this month indicate the deployment of a new strategy against Iran's hardliner government.

POLITICS-US: Democracy Languishes, but Neo-Con Strategy Lives

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have effectively closed up shop two years ago and its key neo-conservative allies in the administration, such as Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith, may be long gone, but the group's five-year-old Middle East strategy remains very much alive.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – No Evidence for IED Charge

For 18 months now, the George W. Bush administration has periodically raised the charge that Iran is supplying anti-coalition forces in Iraq with arms.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – War Plan or Propaganda?

President George W. Bush's seemingly aggressive Iran policy of taking direct action against alleged Iranian "networks" involved in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, combined with the deployment of a second carrier group off Iran's coast, triggered speculation that it is related to a plan for an attack.

POLITICS: Israel Looking for an Extreme Makeover

It hasn't been the easiest year for Israel.

POLITICS: Bush&#39s Iraq Plan – Goading Iran into War

President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbour, Iran. There was little new about the U.S.'s strategy in Iraq, but on Iran, the president spelled out a plan that appears to be aimed at goading Iran into war with the U.S.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Bush Isolates Himself Further

President George W. Bush's decision to escalate U.S. military intervention in Iraq and issue new threats against Syria and Iran appears to have left him politically more isolated than ever.

POLITICS-IRAN: Ratcheting up the Nuclear Ante

The stunning story by the London ‘Sunday Times' alleging that Israel has drawn up plans to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities with nuclear weapons has focused attention on the growing global nuclear danger and on the worsening situation in the Middle East.

RIGHTS: Saddam Hanging Boosts Case for Int’l Criminal Court

The manner in which former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged has provoked revulsion and criticism in many countries around the world including India, home to 120 million Muslims.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: South American Integration – or Disintegration?

In 2006, an election year in a number of Latin American countries, South American integration schemes experienced crises of varying intensity, whose outcomes are not yet clear. Most were triggered by complaints of the ineffectiveness of regional trade blocs.