And you thought Colin Powell’s claims of Iraqi WMD before the UN was the low point of U.S. foreign policy.
Unlikeliest of Bedfellows: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and a Mexican Drug Cartel
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Middle East & North Africa
The Prisoner Swap
Like so many other diplomatic and political initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent announcement of a new prisoner release is based on the same solution that has been proposed dozens of times before – only to collapse because the time, and usually Israeli political will, wasn’t right. In this case, the separate announcements made by Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, asserted that Hamas would release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006, while Israel would release 1023 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom had been in jail for decades.
The Price of the Libya Intervention: Surface to Air Missiles for All
Enough surface-to-air missiles have disappeared in Libya to turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone.
Arab Spring, Israeli Isolation
With the Arab uprisings gradually reconfiguring the regional political landscape, Israel is finding itself increasingly isolated. For at least a decade, Israel has identified Iran as its main strategic nemesis, but the Arab spring has rekindled simmering tensions between Israel on one hand, and Arab states as well as Turkey on the other.
Iran Alleged Assassination Plot: Emboldened by Nuke Program?
Uber think-tanker suggests Iran doesn’t fear American retaliation for its alleged assassination plot because it thinks its nuclear program will deter us.
Is Iran’s Alleged Cash-for-Assassinations Plot Too Implausible to Be True?
Will Operation Red Coalition eclipse or compound problems created by Operations Fast and Furious?
Poets Stand Up
In Paris, poets staged a flash mob outside the Louvre Museum. In North Carolina, they sent poems to their state legislators, calling on them to restore arts education funding to the decimated state budget. In Vancouver, BC, poets cleaned up a beach before their reading. There was a reading in solidarity with the people of Tibet in Pasadena, California, events throughout Mexico City demanding an end to violence, and “an exorcism of fear and helplessness” in Norman, Oklahoma. Poets gathered in Fez, Morocco, and Jalalabad, Afghanistan and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
The Real Nuclear Threat From Iran May Not Be Nuclear Weapons
Unsafe construction practices may have been used to build Iran’s first nuclear energy facility, Bushehr.
One Step Closer: Lieberman Calls for No-Fly Zone Over Syria
Sen. Joseph Lieberman stated that he favored a no-fly zone over Syria.
Spanish Court Won’t Let Cameraman Couso’s Killing at Hands of Americans Die
Once again, a Spanish judge has indicted three American soldiers for the killing of Spanish cameraman José Couso at the Palestine Hotel in the 2003.