By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
from The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 15 - A year after President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a new strategy toward Iran, a behind-the’scenes debate has broken out within the administration over whether the approach has any hope of reining in Iran’s nuclear program, according to senior administration officials.

The debate has pitted Ms. Rice and her deputies, who appear to be winning so far, against the few remaining hawks inside the administration, especially those in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office who, according to some people familiar with the discussions, are pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the year since Ms. Rice announced the new strategy for the United States to join forces with Europe, Russia and China to press Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has installed more than a thousand centrifuges to enrich uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency predicts that 8,000 or so could be spinning by the end of the year, if Iran surmounts its technical problems.

Those hard numbers are at the core of the debate within the administration over whether Mr. Bush should warn Iran’s leaders that he will not allow them to get beyond some yet-undefined milestones, leaving the implication that a military strike on the country’s facilities is still an option.

Even beyond its nuclear program, Iran is emerging as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and in Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Even so, friends and associates of Ms. Rice who have talked with her recently say she has increasingly moved toward the European position that the diplomatic path she has laid out is the only real option for Mr. Bush, even though it has so far failed to deter Iran from enriching uranium, and that a military strike would be disastrous.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

from

WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) — Timely withdrawal from Iraq presents the best option for driving al-Qaida out of the troubled country, one expert says.

U.S. interests in the conflict, primarily preventing the country from becoming a launching pad for terrorists, would be best served by setting a 12-month timetable for disengagement said Lawrence Korb, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, speaking at an Iraq policy forum Monday.

If U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, local and regional interests will extinguish the growing al-Qaida force in Iraq, Korb told attendees at the forum, hosted by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

“I can’t see Iran, for example, wanting it to become a haven for al-Qaida,” he said. “(Al-Qaida’s) a Sunni Arab group and they’re obviously Shiite Persians.”

Pressure within Iraq might also help quell al-Qaida activity, Korb said. Shiites constitute the largest majority in the country and would probably drive out the foreign Sunni group.

“If we can believe the opinion polls, there’s very little support for al-Qaida in Iraq,” Korb said. “I find it hard to think once we’re out of there that (al-Qaida) would still get the aid and comfort that they’ve been getting up to now.”

The terrorist organization has taken advantage of the American presence in Iraq to gain favor with locals, Korb said, and will continue to find sympathy and attract recruits until U.S. troops leave.

Other extremist groups and violent factions may dissolve as well without a common enemy to fight against.

“The one thing that unites a lot of these groups is to get us out, so once you set a timetable they don’t have that excuse any more,” he said.

A quick withdrawal will also allow the United States to focus forces elsewhere, better combating larger problems in the Middle East, Korb said.

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo! News

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hundreds of Hamas fighters firing rockets and mortar shells captured the headquarters of the
Fatah-allied security forces in northern Gaza on Tuesday, scoring a key victory in the bloody battle for control of the seaside strip.

Both sides said Gaza had descended into civil war, as the death toll from two days of Palestinian fighting reached 37.

Tuesday’s battles marked a turning point, with Hamas moving systematically to seize Fatah positions in what some in the Islamic militant group said would be a decisive phase in the yearlong power struggle. The confrontations became increasingly brutal in recent days, with some killed execution’style in the streets, others in hospital shootouts or thrown off rooftops.

The conflict escalated further when the Fatah central committee decided to suspend the activities of its ministers in the government it shares with Hamas. In an emergency meeting in the
West Bank city of Ramallah, Fatah decided on a full withdrawal if the fighting doesn’t stop, said government spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Islamic militants of Hamas of trying to stage a coup.

A survivor of the Hamas assault on the northern security headquarters said the Fatah forces were outgunned and reinforcements never arrived. “We were pounded with mortar, mortar, mortar,” the Fatah fighter, who only gave his first name, Amjad, said, breathing heavily. “They had no mercy. It was boom, boom. They had rockets that could reach almost half of the compound.”

Battles raged across the Gaza Strip during the day. The staccato of gunfire echoed across Gaza City, plumes of smoke rose into the air from far-flung neighborhoods and one firefight sent a dozen preschoolers scrambling for cover.

In a sign of the heightened hostilities, both sides threatened to kill each other’s leaders. A rocket-propelled grenade damaged the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and four mortar shells slammed into Abbas’ Gaza City office. Neither attack caused any injuries.

Desperately trying to boost morale, disorganized Fatah forces attacked Hamas’ main TV station, but were repelled after a heavy battle. The station later showed a group of captured men it said were among the attackers, blood streaming down their faces.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

from Reuters

GAZA, June 11 (Reuters) - Gunmen fired on the offices of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Monday, disrupting a cabinet meeting, just hours after the Islamist group and Fatah faction agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce.

Palestinians running out of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s office during a shooting in Gaza today.

No one was hurt in the attack, which an aide to Haniyeh blamed on Fatah, Hamas’s partner in a unity government. But two Palestinians were killed in separate shootings, including a gunbattle in a hospital, medical officials said.

Haniyeh was not harmed but the session was suspended because of the gunfire from a nearby rooftop. President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction denied its fighters were involved. Only one Fatah minister attended the meeting.

Sporadic shooting erupted elsewhere following the ceasefire, the latest of a series of truces that have failed to end internal strife in which some 620 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed since Hamas beat Fatah in a 2006 election.

The heavy fighting in Gaza, in which six people have been killed and dozens wounded since Saturday, cast more doubt on the future of the unity coalition formed three months ago.

In a shooting that Fatah blamed on Hamas, a bodyguard of a Fatah-affiliated intelligence officer was killed.

read more at The New York Times

By The Associated Press

As of Sunday, June 10, 2007, at least 3,505 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,864 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

The Associated Press count is 14 higher than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 150 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 20; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, South Korea, one death each.

___

The latest deaths reported by the military:

• A soldier was killed Sunday in southern Baghdad.

• A U.S. airman was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in southern Iraq.

___

The latest identifications reported by the military:

• No identifications reported.

___

On the Net:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, June 3, 2007

America is not the only one present in the region [meaning the Middle East and Central Asia]. We are present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan. We are present in the Persian Gulf and we can be present in Iraq.”

-Rear-Admiral Ali Shamkhani (August 18, 2004)

The march to war in the Middle East is well underway. Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that diplomacy is the best way forward with Iran, but appends his statements by saying that he can not “absolutely predict every set of circumstances,” which means that war can not be ruled out. In this regard, Gordon Brown is no different. [1] The man scheduled to be the next British Prime Minister once Tony Blair steps down (June 27, 2007), has refused to rule out war against Iran and its allies.

The war dossiers against Iran and Syria, the last two bastions of independence in the Middle East, are being built. General Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe , has confimed that the White House has been plotting a course based on a major military roadmap in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa that would start in Afghanistan and Iraq and end with Iran. [2] Clark has stated that, after Afghanistan, seven additional nations were on the the Pentagon’s list to be attacked and invaded over a five-year period: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finally Iran. [3]

The geographic boundaries for these wars all fall within the military jurisdiction of United States Central Command (CENTCOM). This five-year period began with the invasion of Iraq in mid-2003 and, if the American former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe is correct, it should end approximately in mid-2008 or the last war could be initiated by this point in time. It should be noted that the second presidential term of George W. Bush Jr. ends in January of 2009. Is it possible that in 2001, when the Pentagon outlined this military roadmap, that the re-election of President Bush Jr. to a second term in office in 2005, had already been envisaged, in relation to these war plans?

General Franks, the former Commander of CENTCOM, in a late-2003 interview said that he believed that another crisis for the United States could in effect result in the suspension of the American Constitution and the establishment in the U.S. of a military form of government:

“…the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we-ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy. Now, in a practical sense, what does that mean? It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the western world- it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event [such as 9/11 or even a global crisis]. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution.” [4]

The use of discretionary executive and presidential powers in the hands of the White House is slated to take place during a period of national crisis. The National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping controversy that arose after 2001 demonstrates some of the capabilities of the Bush Jr. Administration in regards to the use of executive powers under the pretext of war-time or emergency measures. At present, the American President has decided to exercise only a few of his emergency powers. Under the National Emergencies Act the White House has only utilized provisions relating to the military and U.S. national security. The White House can exploit extraordinary powers that suspend civil liberties and can even challenge the American Constitution. Because of the uncertain and the shifting shape of the “Global War on Terror” that is continually being redefined, a moment may arise when a “Constitutional Dictatorship” is declared to ensure the continuity of government. [5]

Moreover, the mechanisms have been put in place in the United States to allow for the hypothetical extension of the presidential term of George W. Bush Jr. or allow Vice-President Richard (Dick) B. Cheney to become U.S. president in the context of a war-time or emergency situation. This eventuality could occur should a major international war be launched in the Middle East- which is what a war against Iran and Syria would effectively create.

National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 20 would precisely justify such an action. A worldwide crisis of unpredictable cosnequences would occur if such a war were to be launched and Iran were to close the Straits of Hormuz. With the advent of a war against Syria and Iran , a volatile Pandora’s Box would be opened and there would be a complete breakdown of international relations and the existing global world order.

Full article at Global Research

H/T Patriot for sending me this article!

from the International Herald-Tribune

By Michael Kamber
Published: May 27, 2007

BAGHDAD: Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”

His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.
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A small minority of Delta Company soldiers - the younger, more recent enlistees in particular - seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.

With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.

They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs - planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints - and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.

“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sergeant First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”

It is not a question of loyalty, the soldiers insist. Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter’s office and joined the army.

read more at The International Herald-Tribune

By RICHARD LARDNER

WASHINGTON - The system for delivering badly needed gear to Marines in Iraq has failed to meet many urgent requests for equipment from troops in the field, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.

Of more than 100 requests from deployed Marine units between February 2006 and February 2007, less than 10 percent have been fulfilled, the document says. It blamed the bureaucracy and a “risk-averse” approach by acquisition officials.

Among the items held up were a mine resistant vehicle and a hand-held laser system.

“Process worship cripples operating forces,” according to the document. “Civilian middle management lacks technical and operational currency.”

The 32-page document - labeled “For Official Use Only” - was prepared by the staff of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force after they returned from Iraq in February.

The document was to be presented in March to senior officials in the
Pentagon’s defense research and engineering office. The presentation was canceled by Marine Corps leaders because its contents were deemed too contentious, according to a defense official familiar with the document. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The document’s claims run counter to the public description of a process intended to cut through the layers of red tape that frequently slow the military’s procurement process.

The Marine Corps had no immediate comment on the document.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

from the B.B.C.

Fighting between Lebanese troops and Islamist gunmen from a Palestinian refugee camp has killed at least 40 people in Tripoli, northern Lebanon.

Some 15 fighters from the radical Fatah Islam group and 23 Lebanese soldiers died in intense battles, reports said.

At least two civilians were also killed and a further 40 reportedly hurt in the worst internal fighting Lebanon has seen since the civil war ended in 1990.

Later on Sunday, a large explosion sent a plume of black smoke above Beirut.

A woman is reported to have died in the blast in the largely Christian eastern district of Ashrafieh. At least 10 people are said to have been hurt. The cause of the blast is not yet known.

‘Unprovoked aggression’

Fighting erupted on Sunday morning after security forces raided a building in the northern city of Tripoli to arrest suspects in a bank robbery. After resisting arrest, militants said to belong to Fatah Islam attacked army posts at the entrances to the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, which is home to some 30,000 displaced Palestinians.

Emergency workers evacuated the injured from the blast in Beirut

Several hours later, a large force of Lebanese troops hit back at Fatah Islam, bombarding the camp and storming a building on the outskirts of Tripoli.

Two civilians were killed and 40 were injured, AFP news agency reported. A Lebanese army spokesman said another 27 soldiers were injured.

The Nahr el-Bared camp has been under scrutiny since two bus bombings in a Christian area of Beirut in February, blamed on Fatah Islam militants based in the camp.

read more at the BBC WEBSITE

from Yahoo! News
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Seven American soldiers and a translator were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad and a city south of the capital, the U.S. military said Sunday.

Six of the Americans and the translator died Saturday in a bombing in western Baghdad, the military said. The soldiers were from the Multinational Division-Baghdad.

A soldier from the 13th Sustainment Command was killed and two were wounded when a blast struck their vehicle Saturday near Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite city 80 miles south of Baghdad, the command said.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber exploded a tanker truck near an Iraqi police checkpoint outside a market west of Baghdad, killing at least two officers and injuring nine people, police said.

Police said they suspected chlorine gas was used in the attack in a town just outside the turbulent city of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. But the U.S. military said it had no reports chlorine was used.

Police grew suspicious of the truck as it approached the checkpoint and opened fire when it was still yards away. But the bomber still managed to detonate the explosives, police said.

Later Sunday, a bomb planted under a parked car exploded in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Bab al-Sharji, near the Zahraa Shiite mosque, police said. The blast killed two civilians, wounded 10 and damaged nearby houses and the mosque, police said.

Several hours later, a mortar shell landed in a commercial area in central Baghdad, killing one person and wounding three, police said.

Meanwhile, President Jalal Talabani left Iraq on Sunday for a trip to the United States that was expected to include a medical checkup. The trip came four months after Talabani was rushed to a Jordanian hospital where doctors said he was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration caused by lung and sinus infections.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Hebrew University said late Monday.

The tomb is at a site called Herodium, a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert, clearly visible from southern Jerusalem. Herod built a palace on the hill, and researchers discovered his burial site there, the university said.

The university had hoped to keep the find a secret until Tuesday, when it planned a news conference to disclose the find in detail, but the Haaretz newspaper found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site.

Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 74 B.C. The wall he built around the Old City of Jerusalem still stands, and he also ordered big construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Massada and other sites.

It has long been assumed Herod was buried at Herodium, but decades of excavations had failed to turn up the site. The 1st century historian Josephus Flavius described the tomb and Herod’s funeral procession.

Haaretz said the tomb was found by archaeologist Ehud Netzer, a Hebrew University professor who has been working at Herodium since 1972. The paper said the tomb was in a previously unexplored area between the two palaces Herod built on the site. Herod died in 4 B.C. in Jericho.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

from Think Progress

Thursday night, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again belittled Speaker Nancy Pelosi for traveling to Syria, hours after she held high-level talks with Syria’s foreign minister.

In an interview with CNN, Rice attacked Pelosi’s trip as a photo-op. She claimed Pelosi had only gone to Damascus “to have those pictures” and to suggest a relationship “that doesn-t exist with Syria.”

It’s a familiar talking-point: in the midst of this trumped up “controversy,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Pelosi was only traveling to “have a photo opportunity and have tea” with Syria’s prime minister, and President Bush said “photo opportunities and/or meetings” send “mixed messages.”

Pelosi’s substantive talks with the Syrians should not be derided and reduced to a photo-op, as she “reinforced the administration’s policies” and drove the same message as Rice did with respect to Iraq - “insisting that [the Syrian] government block militants seeking to cross into Iraq and join insurgents there.” Unfortunately, Rice still finds a way to target Pelosi while failing to even mention the five Republicans who have visited Syria in the past year.

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

Iraq emerged from a vital conference Friday with a promise from Arab countries to stop foreign militants from joining Iraq’s insurgency. But Baghdad didn’t get the debt relief it wanted, and its Sunni Arab neighbors demand Iraq’s Shiite-led government enact tough political reforms.

The two-day gathering of top diplomats from the region, the United States and around the world was the warmest yet between Iraq and Arab countries, but suspicions remained between the two sides.

“We will see the extent of the seriousness and commitment among these nations to what they signed today,” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters. “If these promises are not kept, we will watch it, and there will be no reason to hold any further conferences.”

Baghdad also did not achieve another goal - progress in easing tensions between the United States and Iran, whose disputes Iraqis say are fueling the chaos in their country. Despite urging from the Iraqis, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not hold talks - only exchanged wary pleasantries over lunch.

But Rice met with another regional rival of the U.S., Syria. She held a half hour of talks Thursday with its foreign minister, urging Damascus to do more to control its notoriously porous border with Iraq.

read more at YAHOO!

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Blessed are the comedians. On 4/2/07, Fresh Air featured an interview by Terry Gross with members of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (here’s them in 2006 on All Things Considered). The Fresh Air interview is well worth a listen. Here’s their website and here’s their DVD.

Here’s a short CNN segment on them:

Here’s a brief segment by one of the comics, Maz Jobrani:

Here’s Ahmed Ahmed:

Here’s one of the guest stars, Dean Obeidallah:

Here’s my favorite segment, from Aron Kader:

Honestly, some of the jokes fall flat for me, but many are pretty damn funny, and I’m very glad to see young Arab (and Persian!) comedians out there.

Finally, here’s another group, The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour. Enjoy!