POLITICS: Arab Leaders Resurrect Land-for-Peace Deal

A legendary anecdote of wishful thinking relates to a Jewish merchant who keeps praying to God hoping to win a multi-million-dollar lottery.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Syrian Lion Back in the Arab Fold?

When Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi announced last week that she would visit Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, the White House called the trip "a really bad idea".

MEDIA: Freedom Fight Against ‘Freedom Champions’

The al-Jazeera television network could be emerging as a freedom champion against U.S. pressures on the channel, leading media figures say.

POLITICS-US: Tough Week for Bush Middle East Strategy

To the extent the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has a coherent Middle East policy, it took some serious hits this past week.

US/IRAN: Duel for Leverage Fuels Conflict, Not Diplomacy

As the dispute over Iran's seizure of British sailors continues to twist and turn, what may have been an isolated incident at the outset is quickly developing into yet another move in the geopolitical chess game between the West and Iran.

IRAQ: Fallujah Fears a ‘Genocidal Strategy’

Iraqis in the volatile al-Anbar province west of Baghdad are reporting regular killings carried out by U.S. forces that many believe are part of a 'genocidal' strategy.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Fate of Five Detained Iranians Unknown

As the Western media turns its attention to the fate of 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters over the weekend, the status of five Iranian officials captured in a U.S. military raid on a liaison office in northern Iraq on Jan. 11 remains a mystery.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Arabs See Both US and Iran as Harming Iraq

Large majorities of Arabs believe the United States' role in Iraq is negative and want U.S. troops to leave that country sooner rather than later, according to recent surveys in five Arab nations released here, Wednesday, by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and Zogby International, a polling firm.

POLITICS-US: Showdown Looms Over Iraq Withdrawal

With U.S. President George W. Bush reiterating his threat to veto legislation that makes funding for the Iraq war conditional on a deadline for withdrawing at least some U.S. troops, Washington appeared Wednesday to be moving rapidly toward a major confrontation between the White House and Democrats in Congress.

HEALTH-US: Top Army Hospital Swamped by Tide of Wounded

As a nine-member commission prepares to investigate allegations of ineptitude at the United States' largest and most prestigious military hospital, politicians in Washington are waiting to see if any more colleagues associated with the scandal will lose their jobs.

POLITICS-US: Peace Groups See Glimmer of Light

Peace activists reacted with cautious optimism to a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives Friday giving President George W. Bush an additional 100 billion dollars to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first time in four years, the appropriation contains a requirement that combat operations in Iraq cease by September 2008.

IRAQ: One Picture Sits Over Differing Surveys

The two surveys, one following the other, told quite different stories about Iraq. But Iraqis did not need to look at either to know what their own story is like.

POLITICS-US: House Ties Iraq Withdrawal to War Funding

The new Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a 124-billion-dollar war spending bill with an explicit deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, in one of the most vocal challenges yet to the George W. Bush administration's policy in the country.

POLITICS-US: Congressman Trades Iraq Vote for Spinach

A liberal Congressman who represents California's picturesque central coast region is under fire for trading his vote on the Iraq war for spinach.

IRAQ: Environmental Nightmare Drags On

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and despite 22 billion dollars spent on recovery and reconstruction, Iraq's environment remains in disastrous shape.

POLITICS-US: Key Democrat Pressured to Cut War Funding

Peace activists entered their 10th day camped outside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco home Wednesday, the latest in an almost daily barrage of demonstrations, vigils and local government votes designed to convince Pelosi to refuse President George W. Bush's 100-billion-dollar war funding request.

POLITICS: Iraqis Increasingly Pessimistic, Anti-U.S.

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqis have never been more pessimistic about their lives and antagonistic toward their purported liberators, according to a major new poll released Monday by BBC, ABC News, USA Today and the German ARD television network.

POLITICS-US: Frustration Marks Another War Anniversary

The growing anti-war movement in the United States has sent another strong signal to the George W. Bush administration and the Congressional leadership that it is unwilling to accept mere cosmetic changes in the current U.S. policy on Iraq.

IRAQ: Young Women Find Peace as Guerrillas

Saria, 20, is a bright and lovely young lady, and she has found peace in her life as a guerrilla.

Q&A: "U.S. Funding Armed Groups to Overthrow Iranian Govt"

Author of the upcoming book "The Iran Agenda: the Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis", due for release in September from Polipoint Press, Reese Erlich recently spent three weeks investigating Kurdish resistance organisations in Iran and Iraq's Kurdish region. He tells IPS that "the United States is officially funding armed groups to overthrow the Islamic government" in Tehran.

IRAQ: Give Us Some Real Political Leaders

Many Iraqis are now looking to local political leadership to fill wide gaps in a fractured government that is failing to provide security and basic needs.