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Summary: U.S./Top News President Bush told ABC's Stephanopoulos that a column comparing the current fighting in Iraq to the Tet offensive in Vietnam, widely seen as the turning point in that war, might be accurate.
Four months ago, the White House directed Republicans to embrace the war in Iraq as critical to the antiterrorism fight and belittle Democrats as advocates of a "cut and run" policy. But with three weeks until Election Day, Republican candidates are barely mentioning Iraq, the New York Times reports.
Secretary of State Rice Thursday pressed South Korea to fully implement U.N. sanctions against North Korea but encountered nervousness about whether tough action will lead to increased tensions and war, the Washington Post reports.
Spain's foreign minister said Wednesday that a deal to sell military aircraft to Venezuela had been canceled because American government objections made it unfeasible.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly wrote that most American officials he's interviewed don't have a clue what the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite is, not just religiously but also politically.
Iran Iran's leaders have not been impressed by UN sanctions against North Korea, the New York Times reports.
European nations are expected to begin circulating proposed sanctions against Iran at the UN, but Western diplomats said only a second or third round of penalties was likely to force a halt in Iran's enrichment program, Reuters reports.
Iraq Attacks killed 10 American troops across Iraq Tuesday, making it the deadliest day of combat for U.S. forces in 10 months. The one-day toll is part of a 43 percent increase in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in the capital since midsummer.
Prime Minister Maliki intervened Wednesday to win the release of one of Sadr's prominent loyalists, who was seized in an American-led raid on Tuesday and suspected of complicity in death squads. The release provoked exasperation among American officials, who have questioned Maliki's political will or ability to stop the killings, the New York Times reports.
Militias in Baghdad are splintering into smaller, more radicalized cells, the Washington Post reports. The fragmentation poses new obstacles to U.S. and Iraqi forces trying to bring stability. Senior U.S. military officials acknowledge they do not have the manpower to conduct urban sweeps in every neighborhood or prevent areas they have cleared from again becoming havens of lawlessness and killing.
Eleven U.S. service members will face military trials in three cases in the deaths of Iraqi civilians, including the gang rape and slaying of a teenage girl and the killing of her family in their home in Mahmudiyah, the military said yesterday. Those cases, particularly the alleged gang rape, as well as the killing of 24 people in Haditha, have sparked outrage among Iraqis, Reuters reports.
Israel Israel's High Court has urged the army to reconsider its denial of entry to a Palestinian woman to study at Hebrew University, BBC reports. The decision is testing Israel's restrictions on Palestinian travel that were tightened earlier this year after Hamas formed a Palestinian government.
United Arab Emirates After decades of selling dreams to foreigners, the UAE has begun debating the limits of multiculturalism, the New York Times reports. Tensions burst into the open when a newspaper article protested the growing disrespect for Muslim customs during Ramadan.
Afghanistan Airstrikes by NATO helicopters killed at least nine civilians in southern Afghanistan, including women and children, residents and the provincial governor said. Kandahar's governor said it appeared no Taliban fighters were in the village at the time of the airstrikes, AP reports.
Nigeria Nigeria's president declared a state of emergency Thursday in a troubled southwest state where he said the impeachment of the governor by the local legislature violated the constitution, AP reports. Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the US. Much of the oil proceeds never reach the poor in the regions where the crude is pumped, AP notes.
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-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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