46 Articles

Monday, May 14, 2012
Adding Hurdles for Iran to Clear
The current head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who was essentially installed by Western powers, is adding new hurdles for Iran to clear before an agreement can be reached on its nuclear program.

Friday, May 11, 2012
Bin Laden Files Dispel Iran-Qaeda Link
(2 comments) To build support for "regime change" in Iran, neocon operatives and U.S. officials have tried to link al-Qaeda to Iran by exaggerating intelligence and ignoring evidence of mutual hostility, including new data in Osama bin Laden's captured files.

Thursday, May 3, 2012
The Secret in the US-Afghan Deal
The secret of President Obama's strategic agreement with Afghan President Karzai is that U.S. Special Forces will continue raids to kill Taliban leaders who won't make peace -- even as the new accord is sold to the American public as an end game to the long war.

Sunday, April 29, 2012
Understanding Iran's diplomatic strategy
The history of Iranian efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement supports Mousavian's warning. It is time for the United States to shed its shallow propagandistic view of Iranian strategy, and accept the necessity for real bargaining with Iran on fundamental issues.

Friday, April 20, 2012
Report on Iran's Nuclear Fatwa Distorts Its History
Obama administration officials have decided to cite the fatwa as an Iranian claim to be tested in negotiations, posing a new challenge to the news media to report accurately on the background to the issue. But the Apr. 13 New York Times article by James Risen rehashed old arguments by Iran's adversaries and even added some new ones.

Friday, April 13, 2012
Iran Talks Hinge on Israeli Demand
As international talks begin over Iran's nuclear program, President Obama has put forward an Israeli demand for the dismantling of a well-protected uranium processing plant, but it's less clear whether Obama will press the point if it means killing hopes for a peaceful settlement.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Is Bibi Bluffing on Iran?
The widespread impression among the Israeli national security elite and press corps that Netanyahu's threat of war against Iran is a bluff does not guarantee that Netanyahu will not attack Iran. But it does help explain why there has not been a much bigger outcry against a war option that is widely regarded as irrational for Israel.

Friday, March 30, 2012
What Iran Can Do to Strike Back
(2 comments) Israel's threats to bomb Iran have hinged on how much damage Israeli aircraft can inflict on Iran's nuclear facilities, but another worry is how much destruction Iranian missiles can inflict on Israel, a danger that Israeli officials are downplaying.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Details of Talks with IAEA Belie Charge Iran Refused Cooperation
The detailed account given by Iran's permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, shows that the talks in February came close to a final agreement, but were hung up primarily over the IAEA insistence on being able to reopen issues even after Iran had answered questions about them to the organization's satisfaction.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Alleged Photos of "Clean-up" at Iran's Parchin Site Lack Credibility
The story about satellite photographs suggesting efforts by Iran to "sanitize" a military site is suspect, in part because it is based on evidence that could only be ambiguous, at best. The claim does not reflect U.S. intelligence, and a prominent think tank that has published satellite photography related to past controversies surrounding Iran's nuclear program has not found any photographs supporting it.

Thursday, March 1, 2012
US Media Hypes Iran Inspection Flap
Major U.S. news outlets spin any event regarding Iran's nuclear program in the most negative way, now hyping a dispute about conditions for visiting a military site as supposed proof that Iran has something to hide. But the media is missing key nuances.

Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tempest over an Iran Military Site
Iran's refusal to grant U.N. inspectors access to the Parchin military facility is churning up new suspicions about a concealed nuclear weapons program, but the impasse can be explained as the frustration by Iran over how previous inspections of the site have been treated.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
"Night Raids' Stall Afghan War Talks
(1 comments) The Obama administration's hopes for a negotiated end to the Afghan War are hung up on a dispute with the Karzai government over the future use of night raids by U.S. Special Forces, a tactic very unpopular with Afghans.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Can Obama avert war with Iran?
(4 comments) There is still time for Obama to repair the damage and to return to the policy he had begun developing in December. But unless Obama warns Netanyahu publicly that an attack against US wishes would indeed mean he is on his own, the chances of deterring him and avoiding war with Iran will be sharply reduced.

Monday, February 6, 2012
A Dangerous Game on Iran
The Obama administration is engaged in complex diplomacy over Israel's possible attack on Iran, trying simultaneously to restrain Israel and use its military threat to pressure Iran on its nuclear program. But some maneuvers may work at cross purposes.

Friday, February 3, 2012
Obama to Israel: No US War on Iran
(8 comments) President Obama is caught in a dilemma, how to dissuade Israel from going to war with Iran without alienating pro-Israeli voters in November. So, the Obama administration has told Israel that the U.S. won't support an attack on Iran but has done so quietly.

Thursday, January 26, 2012
US probe hardens Pakistani suspicions
(1 comments) Air Force Brigadier General Steven Clark recalled in his press briefing on the report on December 22 that the Pakistani liaison officer had been asked where the border posts were located, and had not given the coordinates, but had responded, "Well, you know where it is because you're shooting at them."

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
In Signal to Israel, US Delays War Games
The idea that the Israelis wanted the postponement appears to be a cover story to mask the political blow it represents to the Netanyahu government and to shield Obama from Republican charges that he is not sufficiently supportive of Israel.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Obama Seeks to Distance U.S. from Israeli Attack
(2 comments) Netanyahu is exploiting the extraordinary influence his right-wing Likud Party exercises over the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress on matters related to Israel in order to maximize the likelihood that the United States would participate in an attack on Iran.

Saturday, December 17, 2011
How Iraq Maneuvered the US Exit
(3 comments) The neocons' treasured Iraq War myth of their "successful surge" is belied by the actual history of how Iraqi Shiite leaders collaborated with Iran to tamp down internal violence and then destroy neocon plans for long-term U.S. military bases to project power in the Middle East.

Sunday, November 20, 2011
Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim
A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Iran's Soviet Bomb-Maker Who Wasn't
Careful examination of the "alleged studies" documents has revealed inconsistencies and other anomalies that give evidence of fraud. But the IAEA, the United States and its allies in the IAEA, continue to treat the documents as though there were no question about their authenticity.

Sunday, November 6, 2011
Debunking The Iran "Terror Plot"
The US tale of the Iranian plot was greeted with unusual skepticism on the part of Iran specialists and independent policy analysts, and even elements of the mainstream media. The critics observed that the alleged assassination scheme was not in Iran's interest, and that it bore scant resemblance to past operations attributed to the foreign special operations branch of Iranian intelligence.

Thursday, November 3, 2011
ISAF Data Show Night Raids Killed Over 1,500 Afghan Civilians
(6 comments) SOF commanders have begun consciously targeting individuals who were not believed to be insurgents but who were believed to have provided moral or material support, or to have intelligence information about them. But night raids clearly remain the overwhelmingly primary -- though still unacknowledged -- cause of civilian deaths in the war.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011
US Losing Sway in Af-Pak Region
(1 comments) Obama administration officials have been talking tough about Pakistan and its alleged support to militants who have crossed into Afghanistan to attack U.S. forces. But the reality is that Washington has little leverage left after a decade of failed wars.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011
New Study Says U.S. Night Raids Aimed at Afghan Civilians
A military officer who had approved night raids told one of the authors that targeting individuals believed to know one of the insurgents is a key factor in planning the raids. "If you can't get the guy you want," said the officer, "you get the guy who knows him."

Thursday, September 15, 2011
Taliban Narrative in Afghan War
Holdovers from the Bush administration helped sell President Barack Obama on a "surge" for Afghanistan, arguing that a counterinsurgency strategy could still work. However, two years later, the Taliban continues high-profile attacks almost anywhere in the country.

Monday, September 5, 2011
CIA's Push for Drone War Driven by Internal Needs
(2 comments) A CIA official was quoted by the Post as saying that the CIA had become "one hell of a killing machine," before quickly revising the phrase to "one hell of an operational tool."

Thursday, August 18, 2011
Pakistan Demands Veto on Drone Strikes
(1 comments) The U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 aroused anger in Pakistan over unilateral American military actions. But bilateral tensions have been growing for years over U.S. drone strikes against Pakistani targets -- and have now reached a crisis stage.

Thursday, June 23, 2011
Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term U.S. Afghan Combat
Gates and Petraeus assumed that the military must have the flexibility to continue the military engagement in Afghanistan indefinitely in order to avoid a collapse of the US-NATO position and the Hamid Karzai regime. Even after 2014 was set as the date for completing combat operations, Gates and Petraeus regarded the withdrawal of US combat forces as only an "aspirational goal."

Monday, June 13, 2011
90% of Petraeus's Captured "Taliban' Were Civilians
(1 comments) Petraeus made sure the impact of the new SOF narrative would be maximized by presenting the total of Afghans swept up in SOF raids as actual Taliban fighters. The deceptive nature of those statistics, as now revealed by U.S. military data, raises anew the question of whether the statistics released by Petraeus on killing of alleged Taliban were similarly skewed.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Slain Writer's Book Says US-NATO War Served Al-Qaeda Strategy
(1 comments) Shahzad's book "Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban" was published on May 24 -- only three days before he went missing from Islamabad on his way to a television interview. His body was found May 31. He reveals that Osama bin Laden was a "figurehead" for public consumption, and that it was Dr. Ayman Zawahiri who formulated the organization's ideological line or devised operational plans.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Obama's Covert Clash with Pakistan
(1 comments) U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that American success in the Afghan War requires Pakistani help in rooting out Taliban safe havens along the border but that Pakistan is unwilling to turn against its longtime Taliban allies -- a conundrum that continues to bedevil the Obama administration and U.S. military commanders.

Monday, May 9, 2011
After Bin Laden Hit, U.S. Aides Raise Dubious Hopes for Peace
The new narrative portrays the Obama administration as sharply divided between military and Pentagon leaders who want to maximize the number of troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible and some civilian advisers who want a much bigger and faster draw-down.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Long-term Afghan Presence Likely to Derail Peace Talks
(1 comments) The announcement by U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defence Michele Flournoy in Congressional testimony Mar. 15 that the United States would continue to carry out "counter-terrorism operations" from "joint bases" in Afghanistan well beyond 2014 signaled that President Barack Obama has given up the negotiating flexibility he would need to be able to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban leadership.

Thursday, March 17, 2011
U.N. Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths from U.S. Raids
WASHINGTON/KABUL, Mar 17, 2011 (IPS) - The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan published last week, an IPS investigation has revealed.

Friday, February 18, 2011
Residents of Razed Afghan Village Dispute U.S. Case for Destruction
U.S. forces destroyed the homes of Afghans across three districts of Kandahar province as part of Operation Dragon Strike,claiming they "were abandoned, empty and wired with ingenious arrays of bombs." The people who lived in the area have a different story.

Thursday, February 17, 2011
Short-Counting the Taliban
Petraeus appears to have invoked the privilege of the military commander to avert the potential "political bombshell" of an estimate that would almost certainly have shown a large increase in the number of armed insurgents in Afghanistan.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011
US Spurned Taliban Peace Feelers
(1 comments) The entire senior Taliban leadership, meeting in Karachi, "agreed in principle to find a way for them to return to Afghanistan and abandon the fight," journalist Anand Gopal wrote, but the initiative was frustrated by the unwillingness of the United States and the Afghan government to provide any assurance that they would not be arrested and detained.

Friday, February 4, 2011
US-Israeli Strategy Crashes in Egypt
(1 comments) Unconditional support for Israel, the search for client states and determination to project military power into the Middle East, which are central to the failed strategy, have long reflected the interests of the two most powerful domestic U.S. political power blocs bearing on national security policy: the pro-Israel bloc and the militarist bloc.

Monday, January 31, 2011
Why Washington Clings to a Failed Middle East Strategy
(4 comments) The death throes of the Mubarak regime in Egypt signal a new level of crisis for a U.S. Middle East strategy that has shown itself over and over again in recent years to be based on nothing more than the illusion of power. The incipient loss of the U.S. client regime in Egypt is an obvious moment for a fundamental adjustment in that strategy.

Monday, January 17, 2011
From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State
(12 comments) Fifty years after Dwight D. Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 speech on the "military-industrial complex", that threat has morphed into a far more powerful and sinister force than Eisenhower could have imagined. It has become a "Permanent War State", with the power to keep the United States at war continuously for the indefinite future.

Sunday, January 9, 2011
How Afghanistan Became a War for NATO
Canadian General Rick Hillier, who commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan from February to August 2004, wrote that NATO was an unmitigated disaster in Afghanistan. "Afghanistan has revealed," wrote Hiller, "that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse decomposing..."

Tuesday, January 4, 2011
How Afghanistan became a NATO war
NATO was given a central role in Afghanistan because of the influence of US officials concerned with the alliance, according to a US military officer who was in a position to observe the decision-making process. "NATO's role in Afghanistan is more about NATO than it is about Afghanistan," said an officer, who insisted on anonymity.

Thursday, December 23, 2010
US Stepping Up Pressure on Pakistan
The position of the Barack Obama administration on the necessity of attacking insurgent safe havens in Pakistan appears to be in line with the proposal for cross-border raids. Carrying out such raids would probably provoke a new level of anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, with dangerous political consequences in that country.

Saturday, December 18, 2010
Gains in Kandahar Came with More Brutal U.S. Tactics
The Barack Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October. But those tactical gains have come at the price of further exacerbating the basic U.S. strategic weakness in Afghanistan -" the antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south.