Remember the one about the kid who killed his parents and then pleaded to the judge for leniency because he was an orphan? Now that's the ultimate chutzpah, you say. But then, you probably have not been following the tale of those foreign policy experts who despite being proven wrong...

They tend to gravitate to private sector and many of them have created and managed small businesses. Some belong to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, and most are doing quite well in terms of income and job security. They also are very family-oriented and subscribe to more traditional values.

As a life-long hypochondriac, I was laughing out loud when reading the tragic-comic inscription on the tombstone located in the cemetery in Key West, Florida: 'I Told You I Was Sick!'

I could imagine the poor guy confronting family and friends and insisting to no avail that what he had...

Notwithstanding the never-ending stream of all those based-on-reliable-intelligence-sources analyses, it is doubtful whether these same analysts would be willing to bet whatever is left of their 401K retirement accounts on their predictions that Israel will -- or will not -- attack Iranian nuclear sites this year.

And while research institutions...

Imagine if Ohio Representative and anti-war activist Dennis Kucinich had come in second place and won 23 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2008 -- after taking a close third place in the Iowa caucuses. The New York Times' headlines would be proclaiming "A Huge...

Reports that members of the European Union (EU) were planning to impose an embargo on Iranian oil as part of a U.S.-led strategy to force Teheran to end its alleged nuclear military programme should not have come as a major surprise. Iran has been developing surface-to-surface missiles with a maximum...

The outgoing 2011 is the Year of the Protester, according to Time magazine. The insurgency targeting the ruling political elites, first in Tunisia, and then in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, has not been confined to the Middle East. Protests have taken place in Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Britain...

There are mounting concerns over a possible pre-emptive Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, and growing speculation that the Israelis could take such an action without receiving a green light from the Obama Administration.

Well, if you believe that, I've got a nuclear reactor in Dimona to...

Is it possible that many American journalists and pundits are suffering from short-term memory loss? That may be the only explanation for the I-Can't-Believe-It-Happened reactions in the media to the "revelations" contained in former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's memoir about former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's "secret" offer in...

Even before the crisis in the relationship between Israel and Turkey over the raid on the Gaza "Peace Flotilla" had erupted last December, right-wing Israelis and American neoconservatives were promoting a new Grand Narrative: Turkey was joining forces with Iran and Syria in an anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamofascist Axis...

Imagine 40 years from now how a global affairs columnist for the Fox-Xinhua (or New Shanghai Times) content-providing service will analyze the world's geo-strategic and geo-economic balance of power. This might be the way he or she recalls the visit that China's former president Hu Jintao made in April 2006...

Neoconservative critics have blasted President Barack Obama for failing to assert U.S. leadership in the foreign policy arena, with his somewhat muddled response to the anti-Gaddafi insurgency in Libya serving as a case in point. Indeed, the neocons have being quoting ad nauseam from a New Yorker article by

While the financial mess in the United States as well as in the eurozone has been analyzed to death by economic experts trying to deconstruct the decisions made by central bankers and finance ministers and the positive and negative response by the bond markets, it is important to understand that...

According to a report in The Washington Post, Representative Joe Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and other U.S, lawmakers received financial contributions from pro-Pakistan lobbyists who were being funded by the Pakistani military, including by its infamous Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In return, Pitts and other...

Bibi Netanyahu and his allies in Washington daydream about making the perfect match after next year's American presidential election. In this fantasy a Republican president will team-up with the Likudnik Prime Minister to revitalize U.S. hegemony in the Middle East with Israel acting as its dependable sheriff. Israel will then...

The political leaders and the generals were continuing to debate on whether to start pulling out the troops from Afghanistan at a time when political power was being consolidated by a relatively young reformer interested in mending relations with the rest of the world and despite the growing recognition that...

Wishful thinkers who had expected President Barack Obama to lay out a new U.S. grand strategy for the Middle East -- the so-called Obama Doctrine -- during his much-anticipated address at the State Department on Thursday were bound to be disappointed.

That post-1945 American presidents were able...

Adolph Hitler and other top leaders of Nazi Germany escape into neutral Spain after the defeat of the Third Reich and find a sanctuary in the Pyrenees Mountains along the border with France from which they launch deadly attacks against the U.S. and its allies and attempt to overthrow...

President Barack Obama's response to Libya's civil strife has been hailed as a model of foreign-policy pragmatism. Based on lucid cost-benefit analysis of U.S. interests and values and the resources available to advance them, Obama decided on a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" aimed at averting massacre of...

At a time when every official is packaging lousy policies as appealing "narratives," it might be appropriate to recall an old master of this game, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who knew how to use a good line to turn a strategic loss into a diplomatic success...