In a reminder that negotiation and diplomacy is a far preferable course to war and belligerence, North Korea, still in flux after the death of Kim Jong-il, has agreed to suspend its nuclear testing and uranium enrichment, as well as an agreement to allow nuclear weapons inspectors back into the country. In exchange, the North [...]

The Obama Administration has opened the door a crack to the possibility of arming the Syrian rebels: The Obama administration, which has firmly rejected calls to arm the Syrian opposition, appeared at least to allow for the possibility Tuesday by emphasizing that “additional measures” might have to be considered if President Bashar al-Assad continues to [...]

The Administration has been negotiating for almost a year with the Afghan government over a post-2014 presence, after combat operations are handed over to the Afghans (this could come as early as the end of 2013). This is the second major negotiation with a foreign government over a continuing military presence that the Obama Administration [...]

The UN has been trying to draft a resolution on the situation in Syria, calling for Bashar al-Assad to relinquish control of the government to his deputy, who would then form a unity government. Russia has so far objected to the terms of the resolution, particularly Assad’s ouster. But the situation has changed in Syria [...]

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the President of Yemen, left the country for Oman over the weekend, en route to the United States for medical treatment on wounds suffered during an assassination attempt last year. This has been rumored for many weeks, but Saleh did not leave until the Yemeni Parliament approved an immunity law on Saturday, [...]

Prior to all the rising tensions around Iran, the US and Israel had scheduled a large set of joint military exercises in the spring. Maybe this wasn’t necessarily a provocative act, but with everything happening around Iran, it gained a new resonance. So today, when the two sides postponed the exercises, some saw it as [...]

A provocative article in Foreign Policy magazine suggests that Israeli Mossad officers recruited members of the Pakistani terrorist organization Jundallah to aid in the covert operations against Iranian targets, including bombings in the Baluchistan region and potentially the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The Mossad officers, according to Mark Perry, posed as American intelligence agents [...]

Glenn Greenwald has a follow-up on his story about the murder of Iranian nuclear scientists, and he calls the incidents what they actually are: Terrorism. Part of the problem here is the pretense that Terrorism has some sort of fixed, definitive meaning. It does not. As Professor Remi Brulin has so exhaustively documented, the meaning [...]

The Christmas drone truce in Pakistan has ended. Last night, the US launched a drone strike in North Waziristan, site of many of the drone attacks over the past several years. Four purported militants have been pronounced dead. An American drone strike killed four Islamist militants in Pakistan, the first such attack since errant U.S [...]

One important part of the suspected covert war with Iran, in addition to the drone surveillance and cyberwarfare, concerns the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Several scientists have been murdered under questionable circumstances over the past several months. And now, another death has been reported: An Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility [...]

It must be an election year, because the noise about war with Iran has quite suddenly elevated. You have Republican Presidential candidates talking about blockades and putting missiles on high alert, threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, and the like. And Iran is doing its best to avoid an apocalyptic rhetoric gap, by announcing [...]