POLITICS: U.S. Demanding Iran Restrain Shiite Groups

A little-noticed statement by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker after last week's U.S.-Iran meeting revealed that the main demand of the George W. Bush administration to Iran is not to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militias but to use its influence with Shiites in Iraq to reduce their attacks on occupation forces.

POLITICS-US: Obama Would Focus Terror Fight on Afghanistan

Sen. Barack Obama, a leading candidate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Tuesday he would make Afghanistan the focus of U.S. anti-terror efforts and unilaterally strike terrorist targets across the border in Pakistan if the government of President Pervez Musharraf failed to do so.

POLITICS: Arms for Arab Authoritarians, As U.S. Turns Back Clock

Just 25 months after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denounced 60 years of U.S. support for authoritarian governments in Arab world, she and Pentagon chief Robert Gates are on their way to the Middle East bearing arms and an uncannily familiar strategic vision to the same regimes.

POLITICS-US: Symbolic Vote Rejects Permanent Bases

A bill that would ban permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

FILM-US: A Blurry Line Between Propaganda and News

A shocking thing happens midway through Norman Solomon's documentary film "War Made Easy".

POLITICS-US: Bush Line Distorts Iran&#39s Real Interest in Iraq

As U.S. and Iranian diplomats met in Baghdad Tuesday for a second round of talks on Iraq, the domestic U.S. political climate appears decidedly more supportive of an aggressive U.S. posture toward Iran than just a few months ago, reflecting the apparent triumph the George W. Bush administration's narrative on Iran's role in Iraq.

POLITICS: Most Muslims Reject Extremism

Growing numbers of Muslims in the Middle East and in predominantly Muslim countries in Asia and Africa are rejecting "Islamic extremism" and the use of suicide bombing, according to a new 47-nation global attitudes survey released by the Pew Research Centre on Tuesday.

FINANCE-US: OPIC Extension Tied to Terror and Environment

The U.S. House of Representatives extended funding until 2011 for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government agency that backs U.S. corporations in developing nations, in an act that prohibits investment in "terrorist nations" and requires more rigorous human rights and environmental standards.

HEALTH-US: Vets Sue Gov’t for “Shameful Failures”

Two veterans' groups sued the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in federal court in San Francisco Monday for alleged "shameful failures" to help tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

POLITICS-US: Candidates Hop Aboard the Iran Sanctions Bus

Last Thursday afternoon, in a tightly packed press room of the U.S. Capitol building, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi stood at the podium and smiled heartily as she pointed to two columns of U.S. postal boxes stacked behind her.

DISARMAMENT: Will U.S. Finally End Cluster Bomb Exports?

At the end of June, a few members of the U.S. Congress made a discreet move to limit this country's exports of cluster bombs, a weapon that has been used around the world since the Second World War to devastating humanitarian consequences.

POLITICS-US: Partisan Lines Harden in Iraq Debate

After a week and a half of Senate debate, including an all-night session Tuesday, the possibility that legislation to de-escalate U.S. military intervention in Iraq soon could be adopted by a strong bipartisan majority appears to have receded, at least until mid-September, if not well into next year.

FINANCE: U.S. Brokers Afghan Debt Cancellation

The United States, Germany and Russia have agreed to write off one billion dollars in bilateral debts owed by Afghanistan, or 92 percent of the poor nation's debt to the three nations.

POLITICS: Pakistani al Qaeda a Real Threat – US Intelligence

The United States intelligence community’s latest assessment of al Qaeda and the threat it poses to the homeland appears to have both renewed questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq and returned the spotlight to an increasingly strife-ridden Pakistan.

POLITICS-US: Congress Pushes Sanctions on Iran

As the United States and its United Nations allies plan to push for stiffer economic sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear programme, an Iran sanctions bill making its way through Congress includes several key measures that may threaten U.S. diplomacy towards Tehran and split key allies on the issue, including Russia.

MIDEAST: New Bush Initiative Met with Scepticism

A major policy address Monday by U.S. President George W. Bush promoting a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine has been greeted with considerable scepticism by Middle East specialists here.

PAKISTAN-US: Bush-Musharraf Alliance Under Growing Attack

Despite the media's and official Washington's focus on Iraq and Iran as the most urgent challenges to U.S. foreign policy, a growing chorus of voices is calling for a major shift towards what they regard as the "central front in the war on terror" - Pakistan.

ISRAEL-SYRIA: Peace or Another “Accidental” Summer War?

Nearly a year has passed since the Islamist resistance group Hezbollah launched a cross-border raid into Israel, igniting a 34-day summer war that killed more than 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis, and destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure.

POLITICS-US: Wolfowitz – Return to Sender?

Recently forced out as president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, one of the primary architects of U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq war, is heading back to familiar surroundings. And the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the United States' premier conservative think tanks, is more than pleased to welcome him back.

IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN: Overlooking the Air War

On Jun. 18, seven children were killed during a U.S.-led air strike against a suspected al Qaeda sanctuary in eastern Afghanistan. Three days later, at least 25 civilians died during a similar "incident" in Helmand province in the south of the country.

POLITICS-US: Neo-Cons Try to Rally, Bully Republicans

In the face of a critical Senate debate on future U.S. strategy in Iraq, neo-conservatives and other hawks are trying to rally increasingly sceptical - and worried - Republicans behind continued support for President George W. Bush's five-month-old "surge" strategy.