IRAQ: A Cake Walk This Isn’t

''They will be greeted with sweets and flowers,'' Kanan Makiya, a leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the predominantly exile opposition group favoured by Pentagon hawks, confidently told journalists just a few days before the U.S.-led invasion got under way last Wednesday.

IRAQ: Neo-Conservatives Enlist Democrats for Post-War Goals

Neo-conservatives who allied themselves with traditional right-wing Republicans to push for war in Iraq are now trying to enlist veterans of the Democratic administration of former President Bill Clinton to realise their post-war plans for transforming Iraq.

IRAQ: Latent Split on Post-War Plan Emerges Among Bush Hawks

An almost audible sigh of relief could be heard from a non-descript downtown building here Thursday morning when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein appeared on television some hours after U.S. warplanes and cruise missiles had bombarded a residence in Baghdad.

POLITICS-IRAQ-US: War Looks Lost Even Before First Shot

Regardless of how quickly U.S. troops roll into Baghdad, the second Gulf War already looks like a historic defeat for the United States.

IRAQ: The Sense of History Impending

With the likelihood of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq by week's end, one can almost hear the hinges of the doors of history creaking open.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: The Praxis of Upheaval

''Whenever I hear policy makers talk about the wonders of 'stability', I get the heebie-jeebies,'' wrote Michael Ledeen, a ''scholar'' at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in early 2000. ''That is for tired old Europeans and nervous Asians, not for us.''

IRAQ: U.S. Flails Perfidious French for Blocking Road to Baghdad

You can't get ''French Fries'' in the congressional cafeterias anymore; you have to order "Freedom Fries''.

IRAQ: Spotlight Turned on Role Played by U.S. Jews in Crisis

The prominence of neo-conservative Jews in the campaign for war against Iraq and the perception that Israel has much to gain from the ouster of Saddam Hussein are fuelling growing debate about anti-Semitism and the power of the so-called "Zionist lobby'' in the United States.

POLITICS-U.S.: All in the Family

When Vice President Dick Cheney's national security adviser and fellow hawk Eric Edelman was promoted to become the new U.S. ambassador to Turkey last month, it was hardly a surprise when Cheney tapped Victoria Nuland to take his place.

POLITICS-MIDEAST: Are U.K. and Spain Being Taken For a Ride?

If British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Spanish counterpart Jose Maria Aznar think that Washington will make a strong push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians after a successful invasion of Iraq, they should probably think again.

POLITICS-U.S.: Democracy Pricks Imperial Balloon

''Turkish support is assured'', declared deputy Pentagon chief Paul Wolfowitz triumphantly after a meeting with top military and government officials in Ankara in early December.

POLITICS-U.S.: When the Place Conveys More Than the Words

If Secretary of State Colin Powell, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.S. public, and other moderates ever had any doubts about the extent to which the most hard-line hawks have captured U.S. foreign policy, President George W. Bush's Wednesday night address on democratising Iraq and the Arab Middle East should have dispelled them.

POLITICS-U.S.: Troops Take 19th-Century ‘Monroe Doctrine’ Global

U.S. troops appear suddenly to be deploying everywhere, and with very little notice.

POLITICS-U.S.: 19th Century Imperial Spirit Inspires Hawks on Iraq

''Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords''.

POLITICS: Growing Rift Over U.S. Policies Mirrors Islam’s Divide

For the past 17 months, foreign-policy experts have been telling readers of U.S. newspapers that the world is not experiencing so much a ''clash of civilisations'' between the West and the Islamic world as a civil war between a small minority of extremists and the vast majority of moderate, forward-looking, peaceful Muslims.

POLITICS-U.S.: Hawks and Realists Still Battling Over Post-War Iraq

While final touches are being put on war plans that could involve as many as 250,000 U.S. troops, officials here are still fighting among themselves over the shape of a post-war Iraq.

POLITICS: Why Is the United States Going to War Against Iraq?

Why is the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush preparing to go to war against Iraq?

POLITICS-U.S.: Bush Revives Alleged Al-Qaeda-Baghdad Link

Of all the assertions about Iraqi wickedness catalogued in U.S. President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address Tuesday night, the most intriguing was his unexpected revival of an alleged connection between Baghdad and al-Qaeda.

POLITICS-U.S.: Military Spending Inadequate, Hawks Tell Bush

If there was any doubt about the global ambitions of the Bush administration hawks, it was dispelled this weekend when a group of influential right-wing figures complained that the current military budget of almost 400 billion dollars - greater than the world's 15 next biggest military establishments combined - is not enough to sustain U.S. strategy abroad.

POLITICS-U.S.: Hawks Reveal Isolationist Impulses Over Korea

That the hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush along with their cheerleaders in the media and Washington think tanks are unilateralist has become conventional wisdom.

POLITICS-U.S.: The Unreality of Imminent War

There is something very unreal about being in Washington at the present time.