Today in the news section I wrote about a speech yesterday from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The title chooses what is the most pertinent part of the speech: Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei: We Will Never Seek Nuclear Weapons. “The Iranian nation has never...
Senate Resolution 380 was introduced last week by Senators Joseph Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Robert Casey. It basically says it should be the policy of the United States to prevent Iran "from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability” and it “rejects any United...
At his Foreign Policy blog, George Washington University professor Marc Lynch points to a report he wrote for the Center for a New American Century arguing forcefully and persuasively against any kind of military intervention in Syria, including arming the...
Peter Beinart observes what I've been writing here for some time now: the military and intelligence community understands that launching a war on Iran is irrational, but the hysterical political debate is making war more and more likely. The problem with his analysis...
While U.S. officials continue to publicly advocate arming and aiding the armed groups in Syria, others say the opposition's turn to violence has stymied a revolution and strengthened the Assad regime. Hugo Dixon from Reuters: The Assad regime probably likes the fact...
From Steve Clemons at the Atlantic: A Republican, numbers-compulsive defense wonk at the Center for Defense Information, Winslow Wheeler, has published a great summary of what America's defense budget 'really' is. Wheeler offers a chart of the budget figures for both...
For a bit more on Khader Adnan, see here.
Yesterday's New York Times featured a long article detailing Russian arms sales to the contested regime in Syria. It described video footage of "vintage Soviet tanks" rolling through the city of Homs and satellite images released by the State Department showing...
Last week I wrote about some recent polling which suggests the American public, contrary to the collective narrative we hear about, is relatively supportive of military action against Iran in order to prevent it attaining nuclear weapons. Daniel Larison thinks that...
The indispensable Jeremy Scahill has a new report on Yemen at Nation magazine. The article goes in depth with U.S.-supported Yemeni security forces and reiterates criticisms of President Saleh, that he allowed al-Qaeda militants to gain ground in the country in order...
