POLITICS-US: Neo-Conservatives’ “Favourite Democrat” Falls

Tuesday's defeat in Connecticut's primary election of President George W. Bush's "favourite Democrat", Sen. Joe Lieberman, by a little-known anti-war candidate marks a major setback to neo-conservative hopes of maintaining bipartisan support for the administration's aggressive foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East.

MIDEAST: Was Israel’s Aim to Clear Path for US War on Iran?

Israel has argued that the war against Hezbollah's rocket arsenal was a defensive response to the Shiite organisation's threat to Israeli security, but the evidence points to a much more ambitious objective - the weakening of Iran's deterrent to an attack on its nuclear sites.

POLITICS: Activists Recall Hiroshima as Nuclear Worries Grow

As the war between Israel and Lebanon approaches the one-month mark and the U.S. continues to pursue expansion of its nuclear arsenal, people around the world will stop to remember Aug. 7, 1945.

MIDEAST: U.S. Watches Dreams of Transformation Dissolve

Entering the fourth week of war between Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Israel, the George W. Bush administration's ambitions to transform the Arab Middle East into a pro-Western, more democratic region are fading fast.

IRAQ: Corruption and Violence Slow Reconstruction – Audit

The much-touted U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq is floundering under threats from rampant corruption and deteriorating security, a U.S. government watchdog says.

MIDEAST: U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other

As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues unabated into its fourth consecutive week, the United States says it stands ready to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire.

MIDEAST: U.N. Inaction on Lebanon Under Heavy Fire

As the Israelis continue to defy the international community and refuse to agree to a ceasefire in the three-week old bombing of Lebanon, a hamstrung United Nations has come under heavy fire for merely watching the death and destruction from the sidelines.

MIDEAST: Republican Realists Call for Major Course Change

Some of the Republican Party's most venerable foreign policy strategists are calling urgently for a major course change in U.S. policy in the Middle East, but neither the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush nor Republicans in Congress appear inclined to pay much heed.

POLITICS: Defiant Iran Shrugs Off Security Council Ultimatum

Iran accused the United States and its allies on Monday of trying to use the United Nations Security Council as a cover to justify their "threats of resorting to force" against the Islamic Republic.

MIDEAST: Iran Walks Razor’s Edge in Israel-Lebanon Conflict

Despite Iran's strong rhetoric condemning Israel's military onslaught against Lebanon, Tehran, which is accused by the U.S. of supplying weapons to Hezbollah, has become cautious in supporting its most flourishing investment abroad.

POLITICS-US: Immigration Debate Splinters Conservatives

Leading conservatives recently sent an open letter to U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional leaders stating that "enforcement first" measures should be central to any immigration policy reform.

POLITICS-US: Kurdish “Thank You” a Republican Stunt?

Kurdish officials toured the United States last week to launch a massive advertising and public relations campaign thanking the United States for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and urging U.S. companies to invest in the region.

POLITICS: U.N. Sanctions on Iran Recede Further

Russia and China, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have dismissed media speculation that they had reached an informal deal with the United States and its European allies on threats to impose sanctions on Iran.

POLITICS: Lebanon, False Note in Rice’s Piano Diplomacy

The sole discordance to United States top diplomat Condoleezza Rice's virtuoso piano performance for Asia's foreign ministers, on Thursday night, was the chorus of ''Get Out Rice'' and ''Stop the Genocide in Lebanon'' chanted by demonstrators outside the hall.

MIDEAST: Sunni-Shia Split Fades as Israel Presses Campaign

Hopes by the George W. Bush administration for the emergence of an implicit Sunni-Israel alliance against an Iranian-led "Shia Crescent" have faded over the past week as Arab public opinion has become increasingly united by outrage over the Jewish state's continuing military campaign in Lebanon and Washington's refusal to stop it, according to Middle East experts here.

POLITICS-US: Mideast Figures High in Battle Over Bolton

One year after Democrats succeeded in blocking Senate confirmation of John Bolton as Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, the White House has once again thrown down the gauntlet, demanding that its least diplomatic diplomat be confirmed in the post for the balance of President George W. Bush's term.

POLITICS-US: Congress May Sue Over Bush’s Use of Tacit Veto

U.S. President George W. Bush's widespread use of so-called "signing statements" to unilaterally decide which parts of acts passed by Congress he will enforce came under sharp criticism from a blue-ribbon task force assembled by the nation's premier legal organisation.

POLITICS: Damascus Now Seen As Pivotal in Mideast Crisis

Mocked just months ago as a fool and a lightweight compared to his legendarily shrewd father, Syrian President Bashar Assad appears increasingly to have become the "go-to guy" in resolving the two-week-old war between Hezbollah and Israel.

POLITICS: US Now a Bystander in Iraq’s Sectarian War

The United States has been reduced to the role of passive bystander as a new stage of sectarian civil war has begun in Iraq, marked by military units with heavy weaponry carrying out mass killings.

MIDEAST: U.N. Shifts Focus from Politics to Humanitarian Aid

The United Nations is trying to help resolve the Lebanese crisis on two fronts: political and humanitarian.

MIDEAST: U.S. Turns to Arab Dictators to Contain Hezbollah

The United States is using authoritarian Arab leaders, who fear that Iran could export its revolutionary political model to their disgruntled populations and are concerned about Washington's reprisal against them a la Saddam Hussein in Iraq, as a buffer between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel, Washington's protégé in the Middle East, analysts here say.