US/IRAN: Tough New Sanctions Could Backfire, Experts Warn

In the more than five years since the George W. Bush administration's misdirected adventurism in Iraq, the fundamental balance of power in the Middle East has shifted.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Stuck!

"Tell me how this ends," Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division, asked a Washington Post reporter during the "liberation" of Iraq almost exactly five years ago.

RIGHTS: Serious Abuses No Bar to U.S. Military Aid

Washington is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department's latest series of human rights reports for recruiting and using child soldiers. They are Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.

US/IRAQ: Calm on the Surface, Simmering Beneath

With the head of the occupying forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker delivering a progress report to Congress this week, Iraq has been thrust back into the U.S. public consciousness, along with all the political divisions the issue engenders.

POLITICS-US: Vets Press McCain to Back Greater Benefits

A leading political action committee founded by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has launched a new internet video and petition demanding Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain throw his support behind a new G.I. Bill to provide improved education benefits for soldiers returning home from the two wars.

RIGHTS: Jordan Acted as Hub for U.S. Renditions, Report Says

Jordan, often described in the mainstream press as the most moderate country in the Arab Middle East, was the first to receive prisoners "as a true proxy jailer for the CIA" and has received more victims of "extraordinary rendition" than any other country in the world, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

POLITICS: Iranian Public Sees Reduced U.S. Threat

While still distrustful of U.S. intentions, the Iranian public believes that the threat posed by Washington has diminished over the past year and favours increased exchanges between the two countries, including direct talks on stabilising Iraq and other issues, according to a major new survey released here Monday by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO).

FINANCE: U.S. Lawmakers Invested in Iraq, Afghanistan Wars

U.S. lawmakers have a financial interest in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a review of their accounts has revealed.

US/IRAQ: Petraeus Testimony to Defend False "Proxy War" Line

A key objective of the Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus this week will be to defend the George W. Bush administration's strategic political line that it is fighting an Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: Iraq Still a Quagmire Say Experts

Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, '’the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world,’’ according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group (ISG) in 2006.

POLITICS: Not Easy to Come in From the Cold War

NATO and Russia made little progress in settling their disputes during the alliance's summit in Bucharest this week. But the two sides insisted the Cold War is over and that they are open to compromise.

AFGHANISTAN: More, But of What

At the Bucharest summit, NATO adopted an undisclosed "comprehensive" security strategy in Afghanistan, which combines military with civilian efforts. The publicised discussions on Afghanistan, however, were focused on the numbers of troops.

POLITICS-US: Campaigns Spar Over Where to Focus Troops

Last week's violent clashes in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra reverberated all the way to Washington, where suddenly, the Iraq war was thrust back into the limelight just as the 2008 primary season enters its final stretch.

US/MIDEAST: Whispers for Engagement with Hamas

Two years after Hamas was isolated almost unanimously by the international community following its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections, the militant Islamist group has repeatedly proved that it can disrupt U.S. President George W. Bush's plans for a decisive agreement on Palestinian-Israeli peace by the end of this year.

US/IRAQ: Surge Success Runs Into Sadr

As the fifth year of U.S. discontent came and went, presidential candidates jousted with each other about how best to assuage the fears of ordinary citizens over a war that - in nearly all estimates - has gone terribly wrong.

POLITICS: Embarrassed U.S. Starts to Disown Basra Operation

As it became clear last week that the "Operation Knights Assault" in Basra was in serious trouble, the George W. Bush administration began to claim in off-the-record statements to journalists that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had launched the operation without consulting Washington.

RIGHTS-MIDEAST: Govts Ever More Draconian, Group Says

One of the Arab world's most widely respected non-governmental organisations is charging that at least 14 Middle East and North African governments are systematically violating the civil liberties of their citizens - and most of them are close U.S. allies in the war on terror.

ARTS-IRAQ: Ghosts From the Land of Milk and Honey

Somewhere in Baghdad, a family sits down to dinner. Heaped plates of food line the long table. A man sits at the head, fork in hand. Beside him, a youngish woman with immaculately shaped eyebrows turns to speak with a young girl. Forks and spoons face upwards on still empty flowered plates.

RIGHTS-US: Jailed Professor on Hunger Strike

Webster's New Dictionary defines "justice" with words that represent lofty ideals; "integrity", "impartiality", and "the awarding of what is due". But in the case of Palestinian activist and former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, critics say, the U.S. Department of Justice under President George W. Bush has failed miserably to meet any of those standards.

US/MIDEAST: Building on a Divided House

In a continuing bid to promote Palestinian-Israeli peace, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney became the latest in a parade of high ranking officials from the administration of President George W. Bush to visit the region and push the peace process set in motion at the Annapolis conference last fall.

US/IRAQ: Sadr Offensive Shows Failure of Petraeus Strategy

The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shiite rivals, which could mark the end of Moqtada al-Sadr's self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes Gen. David Petraeus's strategy for controlling Sadr's forces as a failure.