KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait (AP) — The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border into neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their convoy’s exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered and struggling to recover. (more)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy moved into a critical period of realignment Saturday after the death of the heir to the throne opened the way for a new crown prince: most likely a tough-talking interior minister who has led crackdowns on Islamic militants but also has shown favor to ultraconservative traditions such as keeping the ban on women voting. (more)
Two years after President Obama took office and embarked upon a kinder, gentler approach to dealing with the Muslim world, we must ask whether this approach is bearing fruit. Perhaps the best indicator of this is how the “Arab street” commemorated the last anniversary of 9/11. Translations of numerous articles about 9/11 published in Arab newspapers suggest that the Arab world’s perception of America is deteriorating. (more)
CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — A Virginia teenager who claims he was beaten and tortured while stuck in Kuwait for a month after he was apparently placed on the U.S. government’s no-fly list was reunited with his family at a Washington-area airport Friday. (more)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Tuesday, in the hopes of acquiring a court order to allow a 19 year-old Muslim Virginian, currently on the U.S. “no fly” list and detained in Kuwait, to return to the United States. (more)
Last weekend’s parliamentary elections in Egypt once again highlighted the dismal state of democracy in the Arab world. The Mubarak regime pulled out all the stops to stymie the opposition and ensure that the ruling party captured 201 of the 209 seats up for grabs in the first round of elections. (more)
There was a sigh of relief at the Pentagon Wednesday as the U.S. Army’s final combat brigade crossed from Iraq into Kuwait. Generals and their staffs have spent nearly a decade juggling soldiers to meet the needs of two wars, bruising many of the units and stretching the Army nearly to the breaking point in the process. Military experts agree that reducing troop strength in Iraq will ease the strain on the force, although it could allow tensions inside Iraq to flare. But the campaign’s sunk costs — more than 4,400 U.S. troops dead, 30,000 wounded (and far higher Iraqi casualties), along with a price tag that amounts to $2,500 for every person in America — is far higher than anyone expected when Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003. (more)
KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait (AP) — A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history. (more)
It’s called buzkashi, and it’s Afghanistan’s national sport. The game is simple enough: horses assemble on the side of a field, players cling to their horses with one hand, and grip their leather whip with the other. In the center of the field is a goat, lying in cold blood, with no head, covered in flies. (more)
It took Christendom centuries, but religious tolerance eventually replaced persecution. Today it’s hard to find a Christian society that genuinely persecutes. (more)
As world organizations, nations and international media rally together in their favorite cause célèbre of vilifying Israel the Gaza flotilla attack, the country finds itself again on the defensive, trying to explain to the world why it instituted the blockade of Gaza and what part the terrorist organization Hamas is playing in that blockade. (more)
President Obama’s new Nuclear Posture Review has succeeded mightily in muddying the clear waters. He says we will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear power. Except Iran. Except North Korea. If we are attacked with biological or chemical weapons, we will not retaliate with nuclear weapons. Is this a green light for another attack on the homeland? And what are the former captive nations of Europe supposed to think? Does any NATO member—like Poland, like Estonia—sleep more soundly with this ringing declaration of confusion, this uncertain trumpet? (more)
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ leaked memo to National Security Advisor General James Jones (U.S.MC Ret) that said the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s continuing movement towards a nuclear weapon capability raised some eyebrows. And so it should. But neither the American people nor the White House should need a memo to alert them to this reality. As Fredrick the Great said “Negotiations without arms are like notes without instruments.” The Obama administration’s Iran policy has no melody because it has no threat of arms. (more)
It has been nearly a decade since President George W. Bush chose arrogance over humility as the basis of American foreign policy. The intervening years have not been good for the United States or the Republican Party. As the GOP seeks to take back the White House it needs to conduct a serious foreign policy debate. Republicans should start by listening to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). (more)
Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. (more)
Abstract: In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama’s "virtual world," America faces the reality of Iran’s intransigence and aggressiveness; China’s headlong pursuit of its own national, regional, and global interests; Russia’s determination to regain its Near Abroad; the Arab states’ refusal to accept any kind of a reasonable settlement of the kind that Israel has already offered under several governments; Syria’s designs on Lebanon; and Hugo Chávez’s designs on the weaker countries in Latin America. President Obama’s foreign policy agenda of gradual American retreat will have inexorable consequences: When erstwhile allies see the American umbrella being withdrawn, they will have to accommodate themselves to those from whom we were protecting them. If Obama proves impervious to empirical evidence and experience, all these accommodations, the weakening of alliances, the strengthening of centers of adversarial power in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Caracas, and elsewhere will continue until we are awakened by some cataclysm. (more)
Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barack Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran. (more)
MIAMI (AP) — Several members of the Florida Marlins are set to visit U.S. military troops in Iraq and Kuwait from Jan. 24 to Feb. 1. (more)
