1321 days have passed since President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished in Iraq." Nearly 2800 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since.
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Summary: U.S./Top News Citing dissatisfaction with Democratic strategy on Iraq, Rep. Dennis Kucinich announced that he would run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mainstream media coverage of the announcement has been predictably snarky (although NPR this morning reported it straight.) Kucinich is the only candidate who clearly opposes the Iraq war and wants to bring the troops home, a fact no doubt correlated with MSM annoyance at his candidacy.
Reps. Kucinich and Paul hosted a Congressional briefing on Iraqi war casualties, focused on the Lancet (Johns Hopkins) study. Stephen Soldz reports that Juan Cole presented various evidence from the media that supported the Lancet authors' position that the vast majority of deaths are not presented in the press, and that study co-author Les Roberts again called for another research group to investigate the Iraqi mortality rate and confirm or invalidate the Lancet study. [The Public Radio show "This American Life" recently updated their classic program on the Lancet Study: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/06/320.html]
The Bush Administration has tried to "isolate" Venezuela, writes Just Foreign Policy President Mark Weisbrot on Huffington Post. This strategy took another hit at the South American summit in Bolivia, where President García of Peru, who had previously traded insults with President Chávez, said, "any kind of argument, any previously made statements, remain a closed chapter."
President Bush heard a dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group, the Washington Post reports. Juan Cole writes: "Giving this small random group a high-profile hearing contradicts the basic principle that when someone gets you into a mess, you stop following their advice."
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iraq - the highest percentage since the March 2003 invasion, the Post reports. Six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting.
Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the Iraq war and want most U.S. troops withdrawn within a year, USA Today reports.
In a recent interview, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, incoming chair of the House intelligence committee, could not describe Hezbollah and said that al-Qaeda is predominantly Shiite, Reuters reports.
Israel's prime minister appeared to acknowledge during a TV interview that Israel has nuclear weapons, the New York Times reports. Last week Robert Gates acknowledged an Israeli nuclear arsenal at his confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense. Both U.S. and Israeli officials have refused to confirm this in the past, in part because such an acknowledgment could in theory trigger sanctions under U.S. law, and because attention to Israel's nuclear arsenal could undermine the US case for isolating Iran.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Eugene Gholz, Daryl Press & Benjamin Valentino argue that the same logic that supports withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq supports withdrawing them from the entire region, rather than re-deploying them to neighboring countries, where their presence is sure to inflame public opinion against the U.S. and host governments.
Iran Russian officials said that European negotiators have overcome many of their objections to a draft U.N. Security Council resolution barring Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and ballistic missiles, the Washington Post reports. Russia has insisted that sanctions be narrowly focused on activities suspected to violate international agreements, rather than the broad sanctions on Iran's legal nuclear program sought by the US.
Israel's air force plans to enhance its air-refueling capabilities, increasing the range of its warplanes, USA Today reports. The article suggests that this is related to Israeli threats to attack Iran. The article points out that unlike the 1981 Israeli attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, an Israeli attack on Iran would strike at multiple targets.
Iraq The Pentagon is trying to bring state-owned factories abandoned by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq back to life, the Washington Post reports, in a bid to reduce recruits for the insurgency by reducing unemployment.
Several of Iraq's major political parties are in talks to form a coalition whose aim is to break the influence of Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr within the government, the New York Times reports. The plan could provoke a rebellion from Sadr's forces, but US commanders say efforts to make peace with Sadr through politics may have failed, and a military assault on Sadr strongholds may be inevitable.
A group of prominent Saudi clerics have called on Sunni Muslims around the world to mobilize against Shiites in Iraq, the Daily Times of Pakistan reports.
Lebanon Violence in Iraq is polarizing communities in Lebanon, Reuters reports.
Cuba Florida congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says a video clip in which she endorses the assassination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro is a fake, AP reports. Ros-Lehtinen is the top Republican on the House International Relations committee. A link to the clip is provided below.
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- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org