Middle East

The United States has completed its planning for a military strike on Iran, the US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said in remarks at a closed conference in Tel Aviv that were broadcast on Israel TV on Wednesday night. “It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically, and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro said …

President Obama has informed the Iranians they have one “last chance” to avoid attack. They must suspend higher uranium enrichment, close down the Fordow enrichment facility, and “surrender” their stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 per cent purity. Iranian officials respond matter-of-factly that such demands are “irrational.” (Some Israeli officials, eager to build the case for attack, are reportedlydelighted with …

WASHINGTON – The Russian military anticipates that an attack will occur on Iran by the summer and has developed an action plan to move Russian troops through neighboring Georgia to stage in Armenia, which borders on the Islamic republic, according to informed Russian sources. Russian Security Council head Viktor Ozerov said that Russian General Military Headquarters has prepared an action …

By Nathan Freed Wessler, Fellow, ACLU, and Pardiss Kebriaei, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights Today the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rightsfiled a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information about a horrific U.S. missile strike that killed dozens of civilians in Yemen. This was the Obama administration's first known missile strike in Yemen, carried out with one or more …

US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see “how they can help in regime change,” the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks and Al-Akhbar. James F. Smith, former director of Blackwater, is currently the Chief Executive of SCG International, a private …

President Barack Obama has issued the green light for punishing new US economic sanctions directed at forcing the Iranian government to submit to Western pressure over its nuclear program by starving the country of oil revenues. These new sanctions, which go into effect on June 28, aim to impose a warlike blockade of the Iranian economy by penalizing any government …