Any reader of the George R.R. Martin Songs of Ice and Fire series (whose opening book, Game of Thrones, was turned into riveting television on HBO) might see a familiar pattern in the events that threaten to plunge the Israel-Gaza border into a new escalation of violence.
In Martin’s fantasy geopolitics, as in the real world, …
The 32 terror attacks that killed 70 people across Iraq on Monday prompted a knee-jerk question in much of the media: Would or should the uptick in violence prompt a rethink of plans to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by New Year’s Eve?
The short answer is no, and the longer answer is probably not.
U.S. withdrawal from Iraq …
As the Assad regime on Sunday escalated its brutal crackdown by sending gunboats to shell the coastal city of Latakia, yet the rebellion shows no sign of abating despite at least 1,700 deaths so far, Syria’s fate may come to rest less in the hands of its own people, than in the corridors of power in neighboring and more distant …
Washington may have cut an unlovable deal to avert a default on its debts, but U.S. and global stock markets are tanking anyway. That’s because the measures agreed Tuesday can’t reverse the slide of the U.S. economy — its fundamentals, to use a phrase beloved by politicians, are less than sound. So, what the world sees in America’s …
“Liberal Interventionists” in Washington had hoped, last March, that the decision by the U.S., Britain and France to launch U.N.authorized military action in Libya represented a new Western willingness to protect civilians under threat by their own regimes. The paralysis of the same governments and the wider international community …
The reason TIME.com’s intelligence columnist Bob Baer this week found himself cast as the unintended source for “authoritative” claims that Israel is about to bomb Iran, is precisely because what he said had been speculative comments inadvertently played into the game of bluff at the heart of the matter. Bob saw an implicit warning …
Who killed Rafik Hariri? Today Lebanon got one step closer to answering a question that has plagued this war-wracked nation ever since the 2005 Valentine’s Day truck bombing that killed the country’s prime minister in downtown Beirut. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the UN-backed body investigating the assassination, delivered …
A month after the U.S. State Department sanctioned an Israeli shipping company for doing business with Iran, the government of Israel approved a measure making the same thing illegal on its books, too.
Meir Dagan, who until February ran Israel’s overseas intelligence agency for nine pretty successful years, has been making a new name for himself as outspoken retiree. Earlier this month he warned from a Tel Aviv stage that bombing Iran to stop its nuclear program was “a stupid idea,” and suggested that with the recent departure of …
How do you say “lame duck” in Farsi? (According to Google’s translation service, the answer would be: علیل وناتوان) And in a twist worthy of Game of Thrones, less than two years after his disputed reelection and the brutal crackdown on opponents that followed, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been reduced to a علیل …
Despite mounting pressure on Tehran to engage in substantial negotiations over its nuclear program, no serious analyst is expecting a diplomatic breakthrough any time soon. After all, the Iranian leadership continues to signal defiance despite sanctions pressure, and the ferocious power struggle currently underway within the Tehran …
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week joined the chorus of critics blasting soccer’s governing body, lashing out at FIFA for banning the Iranian women’s national team from an Olympic qualifier on account of their headscarves. The team forfeited the qualifier against Jordan last Friday because they would not play without their …
The Arab Spring has, over the past five months, largely eclipsed the Iran nuclear standoff on the global agenda — and that may have come as a relief from a strategic headache for Western decision-makers. Because as the issue begins to make its way back into the headlines, the stalemate is more entrenched than ever.
New sanctions …
