Middle East

An Iranian news agency reports that a fourth Iranian nuclear scientist has been assassinated.  Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was a professor specializing in petroleum engineering at a technical university and director of  Natanz’s uranium enrichment facility.  Mehr news agency said he was “deputy director of the commercial department of the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.”  He was killed by a bomb attached to the side …

THE sectarian and ethnic divisions among Iraqi politicians have now become so deep that trust across the sectarian and ethnic schisms, Shia, Sunni, Kurdish, is now practically non-existent. Any action or statement by any politician, whether well-intentioned or not, is viewed through this destructive prism.  Where do we go from here?  Is there any action that all politicians could agree …

The visit by Arab League observers to Homs, Hama, Idlib, Deraa , the Damascus suburb of Douma and other conflict zones has become the focus of concerted demands for the Western powers to intervene militarily into the ongoing civil war in Syria. The mission was endorsed by Syria, in line with an Arab League plan calling for the withdrawal of …

  The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally.  When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict …

The U.S. troop withdrawal leaves behind a country embittered by an occupation that's cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. And as U.S. soldiers return home for Christmas, the mood is far from joyful among veterans struggling to deal with the personal aftermath of the war. With soaring suicide rates, it's still too early to estimate the true cost …

  The U.S. assured Iraq Monday that it would sell Iraq a second shipment of 18 F-16 fighter jets. Iraq has indicated it will need a total of 96 F-16s   As the United States withdraws the last of its 50,000 troops after a nearly nine-year military occupation of Iraq, visiting Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki had one final request: billions of …