Archives for 2009

Bombings in Tal Afar and Baghdad killed 41 persons on Thursday morning. Tal Afar is a northern city with a mostly Turkmen population and some Arabs. US military operations in Tal Afar caused the Turkmen Sunnis to leave for the most part, leading to a take-over of the city by the Shiite Turkmen. The Sunni […]

The Obama administration has reached an agreement with the Russian government of Dimitri Medvedev allowing the US to transship military materiel to US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. As Russia Today reports, this step makes US and Russia strong allies, stronger than at any time since World War II. The RT report stresses the need […]

I argued on Monday that Vice President Joe Biden did not intend, by his remarks on Sunday, to give Israel a US go-ahead to bomb Iran. The fall-out from such an attack on US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan would be dire, which is one reason I’m quite sure Obama does not want such a […]

The White House denied on Monday that the US had given Israel a green light to attack Iran, in the wake of the disputed presidential election. I and other Iran experts are quoted in this Sfgate blog, trying to explain Biden’s statement on Sunday about Israel attacking Iran. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blamed discord […]

The USG Open Source Center translates the speech on Monday by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in which he denounces what he calls Western attempts to foment discord in Iran. . . . Supreme Leader: Iran Will React To Western Attempts to Create Internal Divisions Speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, in a […]

Adam L. Silverman, PhD, writes in a guest op-ed for IC: The crippling sandstorms in Iraq, which disrupted the trip to that country of Vice President Joe Biden last weekend, underline the challenges confronting Iraq in the wake of two years of drought. The dry spell and poor policy choices have also, of course, badly […]

The top myths in the press this weekend about Vice President Joe Biden are that he was rebuffed in Iraq when he offered his good offices with regard to effecting Arab-Kurdish reconciliation, and that he gave Israel a green light to attack Iran. Neither thing appears to be true. So what really happened? Biden was […]

The USG Open Source Center translates or paraphrases opinion pieces in the press of the right wing Israeli settler movement in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Highlights: Review of Israeli Right-Wing, Settler Commentaries 26 Jun-3 Jul 09Israel — OSC SummarySunday, July 5, 2009 Arabs Have No ‘Rights Whatsoever to Any Part of the Land of […]

Aljazeera English reports on the activists abducted by Israel as they attempted to deliver food and other civilian aid to Gaza, which is under a debilitating blockade by Israel. This site explains the dire character of the Palestinians’ straits. A reader asked what would happen if someone tried to get food aid to Cuba. That […]