POLITICS-US: Gates Strategy Stresses Unconventional Warfare

U.S. defence strategy should be focused primarily in the short to medium term on unconventional threats, particularly "violent extremist movements such as al Qaeda and its associates", while it "hedge(s)" against the growing military power of "rogue states such as Iran and North Korea" and potential rivals, notably China and Russia, according to major policy guidance released here Thursday by Pentagon chief Robert Gates.

POLITICS-US: Air Force Think Tank Advises Against Iran Attack

Amid rising speculation about the possibility of an Israeli or U.S. bombing attack on Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this month, a major study produced for the U.S. Air Force by a top defence think tank concluded that U.S. military action against Iran was "likely to have negative effects for the United States".

POLITICS: Bush Forced al-Maliki to Back Down on Pullout in 2006

Many official and unofficial proponents of a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq are dismissing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's demand for a U.S. timeline for withdrawal as political posturing, assuming that he will abandon it under pressure.

POLITICS-US: Iran in the Spotlight at Christian Zionist Confab

The controversial Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee and thousands of supporters filled a convention centre in downtown Washington this week for his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organisation's Washington-Israel Summit, where the "Iranian threat" was a recurrent theme.

POLITICS: Gilani May Be Pincushion for U.S. Frustration

When Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani begins his first official visit here at the White House Monday, the welcome is likely to be a little warmer than he might wish.

POLITICS: Bush, U.S. Military Pressure Iraqis on Withdrawal

Instead of moving toward accommodating the demand of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a timetable for U.S. military withdrawal, the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military leadership are continuing to pressure their erstwhile client regime to bow to the U.S. demand for a long-term military presence in the country.

RIGHTS-US: NGO “Blacklist” Unfair and Arbitrary, Groups Say

In the name of "global war on terror", the U.S. government is waging war on non-governmental organisations by applying "shortsighted, undemocratic policies" that are "constraining the critical activities of the charitable and philanthropic sectors, stifling free speech, and ultimately impeding the fight against terrorism."

US/IRAN: Scowcroft, Brzezinski Urge Bush to Drop Precondition

Two of Washington's most prominent foreign policy greybeards praised Saturday's direct participation in multinational talks with Iran by a senior U.S. diplomat but called on the administration of President George W. Bush to drop his demands that Tehran freeze its uranium enrichment programme as a precondition for broader negotiations.

POLITICS-US: New Spying Law Quickly Challenged

Civil liberties advocates have lost no time in asking a federal court to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the new wiretapping law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush last week.

CANADA: Gov’t Slow to Defend Guantanamo’s “Child Soldier”

He remains the youngest prisoner still languishing in the U.S.-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While Australia and Britain have fought to have al Qaeda-linked detainees who were respective citizens of their countries returned home to face domestic legal processes, the Canadian government has not done the same for its own citizen, Omar Khadr.

US/IRAQ: McCain Knee-Capped by Al-Maliki

This weekend's surprise endorsement by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Sen. Barack Obama's call for U.S. combat forces to leave Iraq by mid-2010 marks a serious setback to Sen. John McCain, who has tried hard to depict his Democratic rival as "naïve" on foreign policy, especially with respect to Iraq.

RIGHTS-US: Hamdan Case to Test Military Tribunals

As the long-awaited trial of Guantanamo detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan opened this week at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, human rights groups filed suit demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) produce documents related to the U.S. government's ghost detention, torture, and extraordinary rendition programme.

POLITICS: Seismic Shift or Non-Decision by Bush on Iran?

The U.S. decision to send the State Department's third-ranking official to sit in on the meeting between European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana and Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili Saturday has been hailed as a major diplomatic breakthrough, but it is too soon to pop the champagne cork.

POLITICS-US: Realists Rack Up Another Win

In the seemingly never-ending internal battle between hawks and realists in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush for control of foreign policy, the realists appear to have chalked up another win over their once-dominant foes.

POLITICS-US: Doves Outnumber Hawks in Jewish Community

A new poll suggests that U.S. Jews hold views about the Middle East that are considerably more dovish than frequently acknowledged, with large majorities favouring diplomacy with Iran, supporting a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, and advocating U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Q&A: "Iran Won't Wait for Obama to Talk to U.S."

Despite opposition from some hardline factions in Iran, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has responded positively to a proposal by the United States that it open a U.S. Interests Section in Tehran - its first formal diplomatic presence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

BOOKS-US: Blogging Brobdingnagian Blowback

It was neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer who, in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, inaugurated Washington's unipolar moment.

US/AFGHANISTAN: Deadly Assault Could Alter Campaign Dynamics

If nothing else, the deaths Sunday of nine U.S. soldiers at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan close to the Pakistan border are likely to bring home to the U.S. electorate what top national security officials have been saying for much of the past year - that the central front in Washington's "global war on terrorism" has moved eastwards about 1,800 kms from Iraq.

RIGHTS: Uygurs Jailed From Guantanamo to Beijing

As a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim held at Guantanamo Bay an "enemy combatant" and ordered that he be released, transferred or granted a new hearing, an influential Congressional committee delivered a scathing criticism of China's closed trial of 15 men on terrorism charges - resulting in the immediate execution of two defendants, three suspended death sentences, and 10 sentences of life imprisonment.

BOOKS: Muqtada – One Man’s Meat, Another Man’s Poison

"He is an American spy," the militiamen shouted at Patrick Cockburn four years ago in Kufa, south of Baghdad. He could have hardly imagined that he would live to write a book on the very people who kidnapped him.

RIGHTS: Cluster Bomb Treaty’s Moral Force May Deter U.S.

After refusing to join 111 nations in a treaty banning cluster munitions this past May, the George W. Bush administration recently made public its new policy on the controversial weapon.