POLITICS: Soldiers of (Mis)Fortune

The United Nations is increasingly critical of the use of deadly force, including indiscriminate shooting of civilians, by private security guards in some of the world's battle zones.

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Sought to Prevent Release of Iranians

Recent statements by the U.S. military that Iran had pledged to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq and that this alleged flow of arms may have stopped in August were part of a behind-the-scenes struggle over whether the George W. Bush administration should make a gesture to Iran by releasing five Iranian prisoners held since January.

POLITICS-US: No Second Acts, Except in Iraq

Earlier this decade, Manuel Miranda spent a good deal of time figuring out how to pilfer documents related to the Democratic Party's strategy for dealing with President George W. Bush's judicial appointments.

Q&A: ‘U.S. Politics Turning Communities Against Each Other’

"As long as the U.S. troops stay in Iraq there will be violence," warns Gilbert Achcar, professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

IRAQ: Executions Not Leading to Reconciliation

The executions of former regime officials are creating greater division, rather than reconciliation, among Iraqis.

MIDEAST: Likudnik Hawks Work to Undermine Annapolis

Despite near-universal scepticism about the prospects for launching a serious, new Middle East peace process at next week's Israeli-Palestinian summit in Annapolis, a familiar clutch of neo-conservative hawks close to the Likud Party leader, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, isn't taking any chances.

IRAQ: Infighting Increases Instability

Increasing conflict and finger pointing between leading Shi'ite political blocs are heightening instability in war-torn Iraq.

RIGHTS-US: Gitmo Policy Faces Another Supreme Court Test

The George W. Bush administration's legal justification for continuing to hold prisoners without charges at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will be back in the U.S. Supreme Court - yet again - early next month.

POLITICS-US: The Nuclear Cowboys

What do the current Pakistani political crisis, Israel's September air strike against Syria, and Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear enrichment all have in common? All three events reflect the aggressive policies adopted by the George W. Bush administration to deal with the growing threat of nuclear proliferation.

IRAQ: Toward National Reconciliation or a Warlord State?

While the vast majority of analysts here agree that sectarian violence in Iraq has declined sharply from pre-"surge" levels one year ago, a major debate has broken out as to whether the achievement of the Surge's strategic objective - national reconciliation - is closer or more distant than ever.

POLITICS-EGYPT: Al Qaeda Faction Alters Course

The ideology al Qaeda rests on to justify its activities suffered a major blow this week.

POLITICS: Israel’s Syrian Airstrike Was Aimed at Iran

Until late October, the accepted explanation about the Sep. 6 Israeli airstrike in Syria, constructed in a series of press leaks from U.S. officials, was that it was prompted by dramatic satellite intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear facility with help from North Korea.

POLITICS-US: Seizure of Iranians Failed to Validate Bush Line

The George W. Bush administration's campaign to seize and detain Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials in Iraq, presented by Bush himself last January as a move to break up an alleged Iranian arms smuggling operation in Iraq, appears to have run its course without having been able to link a single Iranian to any such operation.

POLITICS-US: Accused Terrorist May Yet Face Justice

Since April, an accused terrorist mastermind has walked free in the streets of Miami, Florida while U.S. officials have refused to allow his extradition to Venezuela. That is, until the subject was finally broached this week on Capitol Hill.

POLITICS-US: The World According to Pat

In a two-week span that saw several conservative Christian evangelical leaders finally climb down off the fence and begin spreading their endorsements across the field of Republican Party presidential candidates, it was the unexpected endorsement by one of Christian conservatism's longtime leaders that garnered the most media attention.

POLITICS: Canada Shuts Doors to U.S. War Resisters

Two U.S. Army deserters who fled to Canada and sought refugee status on grounds of their opposition to the war in Iraq have lost their bids to have the Supreme Court of Canada hear their cases.

POLITICS-US: No Easy Answers to Pakistan Crisis

Amid growing polarisation between President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's civilian opposition forces, U.S. hopes of salvaging a power-sharing accord that would marry the military dictator to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are fading fast.

RIGHTS-US: Rendition Victim Appeals Ruling Barring Suit

Maher Arar, arguably the world's best-known victim of "extraordinary rendition", went back to court last week to reverse a previous ruling barring him from suing the U.S. government for shipping him off to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured for close to a year.

US-IRAQ: What Does the ‘Good News’ Really Mean?

More than seven weeks ago, U.S. media attention on Iraq peaked as Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ray Crocker delivered their much anticipated evaluation of the George W. Bush administration's "surge strategy" before Congress.

POLITICS-US: Dems Put War Costs at 3.5 Trillion Through 2017

U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost U.S. taxpayers as much as 3.5 trillion dollars through 2017 if both direct and indirect, or "hidden", costs are taken into account, according to a new report released here Tuesday by Democrats in Congress.

POLITICS: Iraqi MPs Challenge Coalition Mandate

The United Nations Security Council has been warned by Iraqi parliamentarians of a potentially "serious" constitutional and political crisis if it decides to renew the mandate of the U.S.-led multinational force (MNF) beyond December 2007, without approval from lawmakers.