WASHINGTON -- The worst possible fallout from the ongoing crisis in Syria would be for the crisis to reach into the neighboring country of Lebanon, the United Nation's top humanitarian official said in a timely interview on Thursday.

The comments by Antonio Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner...

WASHINGTON -- With the United Nations preparing to investigate claims of a chemical weapons attack in northern Syria this week, the question of whether chemical weapons were used overshadows the lingering nuance of who may have used them.

It's not a small distinction. President Barack Obama has...

WASHINGTON -- An unsubstantiated charge by a Syrian government-controlled media outlet that rebels deployed chemical weapons in their battle against the government of President Bashar Assad prompted American lawmakers on Tuesday to sound the alarm about weapons of mass destruction and urgently call for a U.S. military response.

The latest...

For the past few months, a strange thing has been happening in the central Iraq town of Fallujah. Thousands of citizens, virtually all of them Sunni Muslims, have been gathering in public squares to protest the oppressive Shiite-led government in Baghdad. Sleeping in tents and wielding Twitter...

How depressing to look back on the months before the war in Iraq -- that nearly nine-year misadventure that left thousands of Americans (and more than 100,000 Iraqis) dead, that failed to deliver on even the simplest of promises of its progenitors -- and take note of how few public...

WASHINGTON -- The battle over the confirmation of John Brennan to be the next CIA director entered a final phase Wednesday as a cadre of senators, led by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, shifted the spotlight to a shadowy piece of the nominee's legacy: the Obama administration's use of drone strikes.

WASHINGTON -- When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director, he knew the ostensible goal was an impossible one. "I can't ultimately stop the nomination," he admitted. What he really hoped, he said, was...

WASHINGTON -- In a pair of speeches at the annual gathering of a major pro-Israel group, top U.S. and Israeli leaders expressed deep concerns about the civil war in Syria and indicated they worried as much about the situation that might emerge after the removal of the current regime as...

WASHINGTON -- A major gathering of pro-Israel activists and lobbyists that kicks off here this weekend arrives at a time of heightened budget austerity and an aggravated level of uncertainty over Israel's place in the bipartisan consensus in Washington.

The event, the annual conference for the American Israel Public Affairs...

WASHINGTON -- A report in an Egyptian newspaper that claims the United States has approved new shipments of tear gas to Egypt under the strict, and potentially incendiary, condition that the canisters not indicate where they came from has some arms control experts concerned about a precedent-setting lack of transparency.

WASHINGTON -- If there's one thing Tom Korologos has learned in four decades of advising officials through sometimes bruising confirmation battles, it's that politicians tend to hold grudges against those who don't vote for them -- even if they win.

"They remember," said Korologos, who has guided luminaries like Antonin...

WASHINGTON -- Top Syrian opposition figures are reportedly considering dropping their boycott of a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry later this week, potentially preventing what had looked like an embarrassing stumble on Kerry's inaugural diplomatic voyage.

The news of the Syrian National Council's willingness to meet...

WASHINGTON -- In October, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, delivered a rare speech to comment on rising rumors about the Lebanese Shiite group's involvement in Syria's ongoing civil conflict.

For weeks, reports had circulated that the bodies of dead Hezbollah fighters had been returning from the...

In 2011, when Robert Ford was Ambassador to Syria and still living in Damascus, he often took to the embassy's Facebook page to deliver blunt messages to the Syrian government about its management of the brewing uprising there, and words of encouragement to the opposition.

It was...

WASHINGTON -- John Kerry used his first public address as secretary of state to focus on the domestic side of foreign policy, delivering a full-throated defense of foreign aid spending as a boon to American interests.

"In today's global world, there is no longer anything foreign about foreign policy," Kerry...

WASHINGTON -- As the nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense is caught up in a Republican filibuster, the self-serving use of the tactic is getting a second look.

Hagel's nomination, which has stalled over GOP concerns about his views on Israel and extensive inquiries into...

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans went hunting for controversy over last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in an unlikely place on Wednesday: the Senate confirmation hearing for Treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew.

Lew, President Barack Obama's chief of staff since January 2012, was grilled by...

WASHINGTON -- Making an oblique reference to a highly classified counterterrorism program that swept into headlines and congressional debate last week, President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address Tuesday pledged greater transparency on his targeted killing program.

"We must enlist our values in the fight,"...

WASHINGTON -- In October 2011, Scott Shane, a national security reporter for The New York Times, sent an email to a branch of the Department of Justice that deals with Freedom of Information Act requests, to check on one of his FOIA filings.

Sixteen months earlier, Shane had asked that...

WASHINGTON -- A report Monday night on the nature of the administration's drone program has the potential to dramatically revamp the debate over President Barack Obama's foreign policy and the confirmation process for his incoming cabinet.

The report, by Michael Isikoff of NBC News, reveals that...