If the proverbial “drumbeat” for war with Iran has grown more insistent in recent weeks, it’s about to turn into something akin to the opening bars of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man“. That’s because the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected, in a report on Iran’s nuclear program due for release early this week, to suggest that the …
Global Spin’s weekend rental movie recommendations to keep you up to speed with world events, by Tony Karon and Ishaan Tharoor
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Chronicle of a Death Foretold
We start this week with Francesco Rosi’s lovely screen adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel …
Yes, you heard right: Britain is preparing to bomb Iran. Well, that’s if the latest reported leaks from the British government are to be believed. The Guardian — not known, like some of its British rivals are, for frequent breathless front-page claims of imminent military strikes on Iran — reported Wednesday that Britain’s Defense …
It’s hardly unexpected that a U.S. political-media culture that routinely repackages yesterday’s panicky improvisations as today’s established “doctrines” has seen many in Washington hail Libya as “the new model” for U.S. intervention abroad. With comparatively limited investment of Western treasure — and no troops on the ground, …
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the ideal test-bed for the proposition that the United States can compensate for the decline of its ability to influence events through military and economic muscle through “smart power“, putting diplomacy in the lead and leveraging more limited U.S. hard power through coalitions and making use …
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 …
The request by Libya’s Transitional National Council for NATO to continue its military mission in the country despite the overthrow and slaying of Col. Muammar Gaddafi is a reminder that Libya may have some things in common with Afghanistan circa January 2002. There, the Taliban had been routed and driven out of power by a …
Outlandish posturing on foreign policy matters is par for the course in a U.S. electoral season, but the claim that President Barack Obama will deliver Iraq on a plate to Iran by honoring the U.S. treaty obligation to withdraw American troops by New Year’s Day is worth closer scrutiny. It might be said that Obama’s critics, many of whom …
Tunisia’s election and Libya’s celebration of the overthrow of Col. Muammar Gaddafi won’t have made for a happy weekend among those fevered heads in Washington who believe the West is locked in an existential struggle with political Islam: If anything, the Islamist tones of the Libyan celebrations, coupled with the Islamist victory …
President Barack Obama’s announcement on Friday that all 40,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq will leave the country by New Year’s Eve will, inevitably, draw howls of derision from GOP presidential hopefuls — this is, after all, early election season. But the decision to leave Iraq by that date was not actually taken by President Obama …
The ignominious end of Col. Muammar Gaddafi may mark a milestone of liberation beyond the wildest dreams and prayers of his long-suffering people just a short year ago, but it also represents a huge headache for Libya’s fragile transitional rulers: Gone is the common enemy that bound together a diverse and often fractious coalition …
Tuesday’s milestone prisoner exchange does not, repeat does not portend a new peace process between Israel and Hamas. Neither side is even seeking that goal: If the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to agree peace terms with the moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, it’s hardly about to seek a “grand bargain” to end …
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 …
