In November 2006, as ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko lay dying of radioactive poisoning, his wife Marina held a bedside vigil. At first doctors at his London hospital blamed an E. coli infection for Litvinenko’s yellowing skin, sunken eyes and dramatic weight loss. But Marina sensed something more sinister. “We asked many times …
Russia
Despite Mounting Bloodshed, Syria is Unlikely to See a Libya-style NATO Intervention
Seven months of often bitter fighting and up to 30,000 casualties notwithstanding, Libya’s civil war to end the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was relatively easy for its regional and international stakeholder — at least it was when compared with the challenge of responding the increasingly bloody standoff in Syria. As the Arab League …
As Assassination Plot Becomes a Sideshow, U.S.-Iran Tensions Hinge on the Nuclear Issue
A used car salesman, a Mexican narco snitch, and an Iranian spook walk into a bar. What is this, says the ex-CIA barman, some kind of a joke?
Let’s just say that the ostensibly Iranian plot to blow up Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington is not yet proving to be the smoking gun that allows the Obama Administration to rally …
Despite International Outcry, Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko May Face Even More Jail Time
In the three days since a Ukrainian court convicted ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of abuse of power, the country’s president Viktor Yanukovych has been portrayed as a modern-day Joseph Stalin. Leaders from Brussels to Moscow accused his regime of staging a show trial in which his main political rival was sentenced to seven years …
Obama’s Iran Dilemma: How to Respond to a Plot Seemingly Designed to Provoke Escalation?
The fact that President Barack Obama on Thursday found himself insisting that the facts support his Administration’s efforts to hold Tehran accountable for a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington suggests that the world is not yet rushing to fall in line with his call for “the toughest sanctions” on Iran.
The “toughest …