Like the mythical planet Krypton, Syria is breaking up into a million pieces and most of the pieces are increasingly controlled by Islamist terrorists, not by the secular Free Syrian Army. Sadly, neither no-fly zones, massive humanitarian aid, nor arming the rebels to the teeth will prevent Syria's doomed destiny....

The Northern Caucasus of Russia, comprising five Islamic Russian Republics (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia), have for decades been an "off-the-radar" safe haven for Islamic salafist terrorism. Normally, when we think of Al Qaeda, Mali, Afghanistan, Yemen or Somalia come to mind.

Tamelian Tsarnaev's alleged terrorism in...

I just returned last night from two weeks in China and the unsettling assessment in Beijing is that North Korea's supreme leader and (amateur propagandist-in-chief) Kim Jong-Un has unwittingly backed himself and his isolated regime into a dangerous corner with potentially dire consequences to stability on the Korean peninsula in...

President Obama deftly executed his own advance work ahead of his first presidential visit to Israel later this week. First, he met with key Jewish and Arab-American leaders at the White House; he then granted exclusive interviews to regional media, including Israel's Channel 2. His message in a nutshell: "Shalom...

On February 24, Sec. of State John Kerry will embark on his first foreign trip as newly-minted Secretary of State. After making the obligatory stopovers in Europe to check the boxes with key allies, the real business of his mission will take him to Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,...

As Egypt stares into the abyss of a potential collapse of state authority, its Muslim Brotherhood leadership is reaping the bitter harvest of its chaotic grab for ultimate autocratic power. Since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak two year ago, a revolution which was supposed to bring democracy, greater accountability and...

Benjamin Netanyahu's decayed Likud/Beitenu right wing slate limped across the Israeli electoral finish line tonight, leaving a trail of lost Knesset seats in its wake and the loss of incalculable political fortune for the once politically invincible Israeli prime minister. When the final vote tally emerges, it will surely represent...

Terrible tales of savagery are all Syria's refugees are able to escape with as they flee Syria from the cluster bombs and incendiary mortar shells chasing them down. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, I recently witnessed the nightmarish fear which can be seen on the faces of...

The ever-present turmoil in the Middle East compels a second edition of my Field Guide to the Middle East Mess.

Is Morsi Mubarak With a Beard?

Who is shocked that the Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) hardline and opaque Shura Council leadership considers the Egyptian revolution's new democracy a convenient tool...

When Secretary of State Clinton, accompanied by Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr, jointly announced a few minutes ago at a Cairo press conference the elusive agreement to end the current round of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the accord represented the first example of cooperation between the U.S. and the...

Putting Hamas out of its self-inflicted misery will not come a moment too soon. Like a cancer that should have been contained and neutralized when it first seized control of Gaza, Hamas' savage, indiscriminate missile attacks on Israeli civilians demands a "kitchen sink" response -- no nation would stand for...

CBS News' sage journalist Bob Schieffer will be moderating Monday night's foreign policy debate, where Middle East issues will surely grab their share of headlines. From my current vantage point, traveling in the Middle East this week, I hope his no-nonsense, get-to-the-point reputation will compel both candidates to shed much...

If only. If only there were magic carpets and genies. Why that messy Middle East would surely bend to a President Mitt Romney's will. With just one wave of his magic wand the good governor's foreign policy address at VMI was a slapdash jaunt into "make believe" foreign policy --...

Shocked and confused are the two words that sum up the collective reaction of Middle East analysts to the nahkba (catastrophe) gripping the region and the broader Muslim world since news leaked out over the dastardly Innocence of Muslims video.

Trying to sort through the rampant anti-Americanism that has been...

At last night's DNC, Senator John Kerry blasted a grand-slammer of a speech over the Green Monster for President Obama and the Democratic Party. The intrepid Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee evidenced a more self-effacing, yet self-assured delivery deconstructing the foreign...

As their humanitarian plight grows more acute, the Syrian people deserve better from the Democratic Party and its elected leadership.

If Senator Edward M. Kennedy -- the conscience of the Democratic Party -- were alive today, he would be bellowing to the rafters on the floor of the U.S....

If there is one Obama foreign policy marked by disappointing diplomatic zigzags, hesitation, and potential danger to U.S strategic interests in the Middle East, it is what has passed as U.S. policy toward the Syrian civil uprising. As the death toll and human suffering reach epic proportions and (as I...

Few observers of the Syrian calamity would have predicted that a final battle of Damascus would have begun so soon with such a lethal display of Syrian opposition strength. For almost 8 months it has been a veritable article of faith among Syrian watchers that the Assad regime -- continuously...

Under a cloud of sporadic militia-inspired violence and divisive regional rivalries which have rocked the nation since its liberation, Libyans triumphantly flocked to the polls on Saturday in their first election in 40 years to elect 200 representatives to a new national congress -- which was supposed to be empowered...

It's anyone's guess what's next for Egyptians. But one thing is clear from the incredible events that have taken place in Cairo in recent days: Egypt's popular revolution has been abducted by unelected military officers. The ruling generals of the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) have re-seized what...