POLITICS-US: Bush Comments Rally Dems Behind Obama

U.S. President George W. Bush's comments in Israel Thursday ignited a political campaign row back home as Democratic leaders decried his comparison of engaging enemies to Nazi appeasement.

POLITICS-US: An Ocean Apart, Bush, McCain Play to Neo-Con Dreams

In separate speeches delivered an ocean apart, the two standard bearers of the Republican Party Thursday offered rosy visions of a future designed to gladden the hearts of Israel-centred neo-conservatives without offering any details about how their dreams will be achieved.

POLITICS-US: Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11

Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

POLITICS-US: Hawks Resurgent?

Are the latest accusations and tough language leveled against Iran, Syria, and North Korea evidence of a resurgence by the remaining hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush hoping for a final confrontation against one or more members of the revised "axis of evil" before his term ends next January?

POLITICS-US: McCain’s Vietnam Lessons Unlearned?

Throughout a long career in politics, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has had his foreign policy shaped by his and the United States' experience in the Vietnam War.

POLITICS: A Textbook Tale of Two Reports

Iran's post-revolutionary education system continues to teach children to discriminate against women and religious minorities, according to a report released Tuesday by Freedom House, a Washington-based nonprofit group that seeks to encourage democracy in the world.

POLITICS-US: Neo-cons Fine-Tune Iran Angle

A new report published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think-tank purports to show the reach and scope of Iranian influence across the Middle East, but stops short of drawing conclusions about Tehran's intentions or grand strategy.

PAKISTAN: U.S. Reactions To Election Results Mixed

Forty-eight hours after Pakistani voters overwhelmingly repudiated the Bush administration’s "man in Islamabad", President Pervez Musharraf, Washington seemed uncertain about whether the election results marked a setback to U.S. strategic interests or an advance.

CUBA: Cuban-Americans React to Fidel’s Resignation

Cuban President Fidel Castro’s decision to resign his political office was met with a wide range of emotions and feelings in Florida, home to the largest Cuban population outside Cuba.

US: Overstretched Forces Concern Officers

The U.S. military is "severely strained" by two large-scale occupations in the Middle East, other troop deployments, and problems recruiting, according to a new survey of military officers published by Foreign Policy magazine and the centrist think-tank Centre for a New American Strategy.

POLITICS-CUBA: U.S. Awaits Its Own Transition to Review Policy

Despite Tuesday’s historic announcement by President Fidel Castro that he is retiring from public office, U.S. citizens must await the departure of their own sitting president 11 months from now before Washington’s nearly 50-year hostility toward the Caribbean island is likely to be reviewed. Even then, change is not guaranteed.

RIGHTS-US: Guantanamo Suspects Face Death, Fair Trial Doubts

As the U.S. moves towards holding death-sentence trials for six Guantánamo Bay detainees alleged to have plotted the Sep. 11 attacks, legal scholars and human rights advocates are questioning not only the six-year-long process and timing of the charges, but also whether the accused could ever receive fair trials.

POLITICS: Can the U.S. Brace Its Fall?

"Is the American era over?" That was the big question that launched a lengthy analysis by veteran international affairs reporter James Kitfield in the influential ‘National Journal’ last May. Significantly, the article - which featured interviews with an all-star cast of former top U.S. policy-makers - was titled "The Decline Begins."

POLITICS-US: Bush’s Budget Sidelines Transparency

President George W. Bush’s critics are charging that he is attempting to use a "backdoor signing statement" to thwart Congress’ desire to lift the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the U.S. Government for the past seven years.

SCIENCE-US: Top Scientists Want Research Free From Politics

Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research.

US-IRAQ: Surge Exposing Political Tensions

Despite assertions by the George W. Bush Administration that the escalation strategy in Iraq - known as the "surge" - has been a rousing success, many of the problems of pre-surge Iraq still exist and, along with new issues, are exacerbating a tenuous political situation there.

POLITICS-US: The King Is Dead. Long Live McCain?

At the end of last summer, Sen. John McCain's bid for the Republican nomination for president was running on fumes. Broke and dejected, McCain was polling below New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and senator-turned-actor-turned-candidate Fred Thompson.

POLITICS-US: Neocons Shaken, But Not Deterred

Almost exactly five years after it reached its zenith with the invasion of Iraq, the influence of neo-conservatives has waned sharply in Washington, as their nemeses, the "realists" in the national security bureaucracy, have increasingly asserted control over U.S. foreign policy.

POLITICS-US: Cuba Policy Remains in Far-Right Hands

Concerned over the rise of "realist" influence over the final year of the Bush administration's foreign policy might extend to Cuba, right-wing hawks are mobilising against any possibility that Washington might ease its hard-line stance, or its 46-year-old trade embargo against the Caribbean nation.

POLITICS-US: Pentagon’s Islam “Expert” Hoisted by His Own Jihad

Neoconservative hawks lamented the latest casualty in the war on terror last Friday, as the axe fell on Stephen Coughlin's job. The Pentagon decided not to renew the contract of its "foremost" specialist on Islamic law and Islamic extremism when it ends in March, citing budget cuts.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Bush’s Twilight Year Looks Grim

If the last days of 2007 are any indication, U.S. President George W. Bush’s last year in office is shaping up as grim and lonely.