A comical blunder by a fuddled, senior East German official on 9 November, 1989, led to the opening of gates on the hated Berlin Wall. In a matter of hours, Communist East Germany collapsed and the once mighty Soviet Empire began to crumble.

As Karl Marx aptly noted, history...

What a mess! The so-called Afghan election that was supposed to impress Americans into supporting the dispatch of more troops to Afghanistan has turned into a fiasco royal.

In late 2001, the lonely voice of this old Afghan hand warned against the United States getting involved in Afghanistan's tribal...

Pakistan's powerful army just launched a major ground and air offensive against rebellious Pashtun tribes in wild South Waziristan which Islamabad claims is the epicenter of the growing insurgency against the US-backed government of Asif Ali Zardari.

The eight-year war in Afghanistan has now set Pakistan on fire. What...

President Barack Obama has been under tremendous political pressure to further expand the war in Afghanistan that he inherited from his predecessor.

Republicans, who have become the party of war, and the military industrial complex are urging Obama to send tens of thousands of more US troops to South...

You can't trust those devious Iranians. First, they threaten the world, or so we are told, with nuclear weapons. They don't really have any nukes, but never mind.

Now, Tehran's menacing mullahs actually seem to be cooperating with UN inspections, pulling the rug out from under the feet of...

October 1st marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

But with world attention focused on the uproar over the contrived nuclear "crisis" with Iran and German elections, China's upcoming birthday bash has so far been largely ignored. We should pay attention to this...

As this column predicted a month ago, Afghanistan's much ballyhooed recent election staged by its foreign occupiers turned out to be a fraud wrapped up in a farce. The election was as phony and meaningless as US-run elections in Vietnam in the 1970's.

Meanwhile, the American general running the...

The name "Ergenekon" may not be familiar to non-Turks, but this murky political affaire has riveted Turkey's 70 million people.

Thirty-three members of a neo-fascist group called Ergenekon have been on trial, accused of murder, terrorism, and trying to overthrow the elected government. The trial was temporarily suspended after...

Last week's 70th anniversary of World War II has reopened old wounds and ignited an ugly battle of words between Russia and its neighbors, Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states.
Poland and the Balts accuse Stalin's Soviet Union of having stabbed them in the back in 1939 by becoming...

It's happy ruler-day time for Muammar Qaddafi. Libya's "Leader," has been in power for 40 years.

This is a remarkable feat considering that President Ronald Reagan branded Qaddafi "the mad dog of the Mideast" and sent warplanes to kill him. Britain, France and some of Qaddafi's...

There's bad news and more bad news out of Afghanistan.

American generals have intensified warnings that the military situation in Afghanistan is rapidly "deteriorating." They are calling for yet more troops in addition to the recent major manpower increase authorized by President Barack Obama. Sixty-eight thousand US...

While scourging Iran over its recent questionable election, the United States is about to shamelessly stage-manage presidential elections in Afghanistan.

This week's Afghan vote will be an elaborate piece of political theater designed to show increasingly uneasy Western voters that progress is being made in the war-torn...

North Korea's jailing of the two American female journalists who had foolishly entered their forbidden nation last March set off a remarkable chain of diplomatic events, culminating in President Bill Clinton's triumphant rescue mission last week to Pyongyang.

Clinton conducted himself with dignity and gravitas, making...

President Barack Obama's long awaited big push to resolve the Mideast's festering problems is on.

Some of the administration's biggest guns have been sent to the Mideast in an all-out effort to get America's squabbling allies and clients to accept a comprehensive regional peace deal whose centerpiece is creation...

God did not intend Frenchmen to jog or diet. But that's just what France's irksomely hyperkinetic president, Nicholas Sarkozy, was doing in this weekend's summer heat. The Gallic Energizer Bunny collapsed and was carted off to hospital. Many French knowingly nodded their heads and said, "Voila! You see?!"
...

Democrats are in a furor over Leon Panetta's revelation that he canceled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders that came to his attention upon taking office as the new CIA Director.

Panetta said the campaign was authorized by the Bush White House soon after the...

President Barack Obama was received last week in Moscow by a smiling President Dimitri Medvedev and a mostly scowling Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Their "good cop/bad copy" routine left everyone continuing to wonder which of them was really the boss of Mother Russia.

Of course, people...

America's capital is gripped by revolutionary fervor and crusading spirit over Iran. Everywhere one hears cries of, "on to Tehran" and "down with the mullahs."

Alas, the collective memory of the US government, Congress, and the media seems to extend no further back than five or,...

Iran's political crisis continues to blaze. It's still impossible to say which leaders or factions will emerge victorious. However, one thing seems certain: the earthquake in the Islamic Republic that is shaking the Mideast and deeply confusing everyone, including the US government, is hardly the black and white morality drama...

After what most of the Muslim world considered eight years of relentless hostility by the Bush/Cheney administration, the advent of President Barack Obama was anticipated with enormous hope and enthusiasm.

President Obama's masterfully written, artfully delivered recent speech in Cairo was filled with precisely what the...