Multilateralism Under Siege

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: U.S. Nukes Plan Viewed as Provocative

The announcement earlier this month that the United States will pursue the design and construction of new nuclear weapons has not been warmly embraced by the rest of the world.

POLITICS-US: One CEO’s Dissent from War on Terror

Meet Richard Wade Vague. Tall, friendly, dressed in a dark, finely tailored suit, with a firm, confident handshake and a ready, if surprisingly modest, smile, he looks like the quintessential successful 51-year-old self-described "conservative" corporate executive that he is.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: No Light at Tunnel’s End

A long-awaited study by the U.S. intelligence community released here Friday concludes there is little, if any, light at the end of tunnel in Iraq.

POLITICS-US: Lawmakers Move to Restrain Bush on Iran

Increasingly concerned about the escalating rhetoric against Iran by senior U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, members of Congress are trying to put limits on his ability to attack the Islamic Republic.

AFGHANISTAN/US: Washington Ups the Ante

Despite growing domestic opposition to his plans for escalating U.S. military intervention in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush is calling for a sharp increase in Washington's economic and military commitment to Afghanistan.

POLITICS-US: Anti-War Groups Plan Surge on Washington

Peace activists from around the United States will converge on Washington Saturday for what organisers hope will be the largest demonstration to date against the Iraq war.

POLITICS: Bush Urged to Make Israeli-Palestinian Peace Now

As U.S. President George W. Bush puts the final touches on his State of the Union Address, an unusually broad group of Middle East specialists here is hoping that he will make his proposed two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a centrepiece of both his speech and his last two years in office.

POLITICS: Bush Continues to Unite the World… Against Him

Despite two years of a concentrated effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her public diplomacy major- doma Karen Hughes to boost Washington's global image, more people around the world have an unfavourable opinion of U.S. policies than at any time in recent memory, according to a new BBC poll released here Monday.

POLITICS-US: Democracy Languishes, but Neo-Con Strategy Lives

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have effectively closed up shop two years ago and its key neo-conservative allies in the administration, such as Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith, may be long gone, but the group's five-year-old Middle East strategy remains very much alive.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – No Evidence for IED Charge

For 18 months now, the George W. Bush administration has periodically raised the charge that Iran is supplying anti-coalition forces in Iraq with arms.

POLITICS: U.N. Officials Question Iraq’s Rough Justice

The U.S.-backed government in Baghdad is facing harsh criticism from the international community for ignoring calls to adopt a policy of restraint with regard to carrying out death sentences against the members of Iraq's former ruling party.

POLITICS: Bush’s New Iran Policy – War Plan or Propaganda?

President George W. Bush's seemingly aggressive Iran policy of taking direct action against alleged Iranian "networks" involved in attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, combined with the deployment of a second carrier group off Iran's coast, triggered speculation that it is related to a plan for an attack.

POLITICS: U.N. Sidesteps Military Invasion of Somalia

When former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticised the U.S. military invasion of Iraq as an "illegal" act, he was blasted by right wing neo-conservatives in the United States.

POLITICS: Bush&#39s Iraq Plan – Goading Iran into War

President George W. Bush's address on Iraq Wednesday night was less about Iraq than about its eastern neighbour, Iran. There was little new about the U.S.'s strategy in Iraq, but on Iran, the president spelled out a plan that appears to be aimed at goading Iran into war with the U.S.

POLITICS-US/IRAQ: Bush Isolates Himself Further

President George W. Bush's decision to escalate U.S. military intervention in Iraq and issue new threats against Syria and Iran appears to have left him politically more isolated than ever.

POLITICS: U.N. Chief Urges Bush to Close Guantanamo

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday for the United States to shut down its widely condemned prison complex in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. military has locked up hundreds of foreign citizens on suspicion of links to terrorism.

RIGHTS-US: Gitmo Detainees Mark Five Years in Limbo

This Thursday, with the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a growing number of people and organisations - from military officers and religious leaders to legal scholars and human rights groups - are labelling the prison a black hole of injustice and demanding that it be closed.

POLITICS-US: If Bush Wants Bipartisan Policy, It’s Out There

If U.S. President George W. Bush is serious about pursuing a foreign policy that can command bipartisan support, the basic elements of one already exists, according to a new analysis of seven comprehensive polls on foreign policy attitudes taken over the past nine months.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Bush Iraq Policy Murky on the Real Enemy

This year saw the emergence of a sectarian civil war in Iraq and much more open Sunni-Shiite conflict in the Middle East. Sunni regimes in the region expressed acute anxiety both about the possibility of the Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq spreading to their own countries and about the growth of Iranian influence.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: A Bad Year for Empire

For those who believed that the precise and overwhelming demonstration of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iran would "shock and awe" the rest of the world - and particularly Washington's foes and aspiring rivals - into accepting its benevolent hegemony, 2006 was not a good year.

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