Middle East on The Huffington Post

Iran Limits Internet Access Ahead Of Protests

2009-12-06T04:30:55Z

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian authorities have slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests Monday to deny the opposition a vital means of communication.

In another familiar tactic before such rallies, authorities have ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.

No Good Osama bin Laden Intelligence In Years, Says Robert Gates

2009-12-06T04:16:02Z

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States has not had good intelligence on the whereabouts of terrorist Osama bin Laden in years.

Gates made the comment in an interview to be aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Thomson Prison Will Likely Be Next Stop For Gitmo Detainees, Says Obama Administration

2009-12-06T01:52:10Z

CHICAGO -- Despite opposition from congressional Republicans, the Obama administration is signaling that a state prison in rural Thomson, Ill., will probably become the new home for scores of terrorism suspects now housed at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Saudi Oil Minister: Oil Prices 'Perfect'

2009-12-05T09:55:24Z

CAIRO — Saudi Arabia's oil minister said current global oil prices are "perfect," as several key OPEC members indicated the group was unlikely to change output levels when it meets later this month.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies roughly 35 percent of the world's crude, has held its quotas unchanged since last year's record 4.2 million barrels per day in cuts.

Iraq-Afghanistan Surge Analogies Mask Risks Of Afghanistan

2009-12-04T23:55:37Z

In fact, Iraq analogies have been flying back and forth so furiously in recent days that Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, the only holdover from the Bush-era cabinet, told Congress, "This is the second surge I've been up here defending."

But probe beneath the surface, and it becomes clear that Mr. Obama is heading into his new strategy with his ears ringing with warnings -- from some of his own aides and military commanders -- that many of the conditions that made the Iraq surge work do not exist in Afghanistan.

Iran Cracks Down On Student Dissent In Universities

2009-12-04T17:39:01Z

BEIRUT — As they gear up for a major anti-government protest Monday, Iranian students are besieged by a clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions. At the same time, authorities are intensifying enforcement of Islamic morals on women's dress and men's hair length as a way to punish political dissent.

They say authorities have cracked down at campuses nationwide to prevent the demonstrations from becoming widespread and that students recruited by the pro-government Basij militiamen are on the watch, informing on classmates suspected of being pro-opposition "troublemakers."

Ahmed Subhi Al-Faha, Top Iraqi Counterterror Chief, Killed By Bomb

2009-12-04T13:04:56Z

BAGHDAD — He compared al-Qaida in Iraq to wolves, urging that the terrorist group be crushed since he believed its members would never reject violence. But the wolves got to the Iraqi counterterrorism officer first.

Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal's death in a suicide bombing in Tikrit could embolden al-Qaida loyalists to try to make a return to the area around Saddam Hussein's hometown where he held sway. On Friday, within hours of his killing, dozens of Web sites affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq were already celebrating the death of their longtime nemesis.

William Bradley: Barack Obama's War: 10 Key Things To Know

2009-12-04T10:38:17Z

It's Barack Obama's war now. Here are some key things to know about this curious, complex war -- in which the newest Nobel Peace Prize-winner has placed himself at the helm of the largest military force ever sent to Afghanistan, the historic graveyard of empire -- along with the likely road ahead.

** Along with NATO, we already have as many troops in Afghanistan as the Soviets did in the 1980s. With Obama's newest escalation, we will have more troops than the Soviets had in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama outlined his new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan in this speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

** The Soviets were winning their war in Afghanistan. Before we intervened with massive covert funding and weapons. Of course, they were pursuing brutal scorched earth tactics, like those they used so notoriously to put down the persistent revolt in Chechnya. Even if Obama, who receives the Nobel Peace Prize next week, weren't horrified by such tactics, and I have no doubt he would be, they would ruin his big effort for a rapprochement with the Islamic world, launched successfully with his address six months ago in Cairo.

** The Soviet Afghan War was won with only a handful of Americans in Afghanistan. Defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan -- in effect, making Afghanistan the Soviet Vietnam -- was key to ending the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet Union. There were virtually no Americans on the ground in Afghanistan. Instead, we worked through cutouts, principally the Pakistanis. The goal wasn't to control Afghanistan, a country with no intrinsic strategic significance for America. The goal was to deliver a stinging defeat to America's enemy, the Soviet Union.

Of course, totally ignoring Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets and the end of the Cold War created a vacuum which, after years of infighting, was finally filled by a new and even more radical group, the Taliban (fundamentalist religious students). A case of penny-wise, pound-foolish, typical of America's lack of historical perspective.

"The Forgotten War" no more.

** The post-9/11 Afghan War was won with only a few hundred Americans in Afghanistan. A relative handful of Intelligence agents and special forces operators utilized air power and worked with Afghan forces opposed to the ruling Taliban to chase Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and to bring down the Taliban government when it would not serve up Osama bin Laden, who had finally established his base there after being chased out elsewhere. (Bin Laden, incidentally, was not created by the CIA and was completely tangential in the Afghan war against the Soviets, barely setting foot in the country.) The goal was to defeat the enemy which attacked America on 9/11, the cadre of Al Qaeda. The Bush/Cheney Administration didn't want to risk the potential backlash from having large numbers of American troops on foreign soil. Certainly not something they worried much about any time after that.

** The epic fail of Tora Bora echoes very loudly today. We might not be talking much about Al Qaeda, a diminished force, were it not for the incredible failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. After 9/11, President Bush vowed to get him, dead or alive. But when it came time to take him, almost exactly eight years ago, in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan where he was trying to make his way to a new safe haven in Pakistan, it didn't happen. Read the new Senate report on this, and weep. The Bush/Cheney Administration turned down repeated reqests, saying it didn't want a heavy foreign presence on the ground, so he was allowed to slip away.

** Bill Clinton was criticized for failing to destroy the Al Qaeda training and operational bases in Afghanistan with cruise missiles in the late 1990s. Instead, it was said that he should have used special operations forces to wreck the Al Qaeda operation. Notice that no one seriously suggested that he launch a full-scale invasion to accomplish this. It wasn't necessary for the mission. Why we have to control Afghanistan now to stop Al Qaeda from using it as its base of operations is a bit of a mystery, as we can readily smash any such bases in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says President Obama's new surge-and-endgame strategy in Afghanistan will help military forces find a better focus for their mission.

** Barack Obama ran for president on a program of escalating the war in Afghanistan. He was very clear about this. The fact that he is now doing what he said he would do when he ran for president should be no surprise to people who supported him. Or to those who did not.

** The Pakistan quandary looms very large. Of course, being president is more complicated than being candidate for president. Perhaps the biggest complication with regard to Afghanistan is Pakistan. It's the only Islamic nuclear power, knock on wood with regard to Iran. So allowing it to fall into the hands of jihadists would be, as the saying goes, bad. Fortunately, Pakistan has pushed back successfully this year against what had been major Taliban gains around the country, gains which happened as a result of inaction during the Bush/Cheney Administration. But its more remote provinces still provide a safe haven for Afghan Taliban -- in some ways invented by Pakistani intelligence -- and for Al Qaeda.

American escalation in Afghanistan may push more jihadists into Pakistan, risking destabilization, as Pakistan's leaders have pointed out. They are noncommittal so far about the new Obama strategy in Afghanistan. And, though they've pushed back hard against local Taliban threatening their own rule, they haven't been so supportive of efforts against other jihadists. With at least some sort of American exit strategy now in place for Afghanistan, it may occur to the Pakistanis that the Taliban will outlast America in Afghanistan, and end up controlling much if not most of the country. Yet Pakistan can be very helpful with intelligence about the Afghan Taliban, who are likely to infiltrate the Afghan army and police we say we are trying to build up while the present surge lasts.

** Is defeat in Afghanistan inevitable? No. Remember that the Soviets were winning before America lanched its massive covert intervention in Afghanistan. Not that we could pursue the same sort of ruthless tactics.

Here's one early window on the reaction of the Afghan people to Obama's new strategy.

The answer really depends on how you define success. Is it likely that Afghanistan is going to be built into a truly functioning nation-state any time soon? No. Are we going to stick around for decades to make that happen? No. Is it likely we can train large numbers of illiterate recruits (Afghanistan's literacy rate is 10%) into professional security forces? It's very difficult. Can we deny Afghanistan as a base for "The Base," Al Qaeda? Yes. But we've been able to do that for the past eight years, with no escalation necessary. What seems most likely is that friendly forces can continue to control northern Afghanistan, providing basing to chase down Al Qaeda concentrations in Taliban-friendly southern Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border if need be.

** So what happens next in what may well be an extended exercise on the politico/military equivalent of a stairmaster?

Obama gave his big speech at West Point. Which was not one of his best, as he seemed rather nervous and didn't establish a rhetorical rapport with the crowd of cadets and the long military tradition with which he was there to resonate. Still, he got the message across. He will send 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan. When it's all said and done, there will be about 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. There are over 40,000 troops there from American allies, principally NATO nations. Nearly 10,000 of those troops are British.

He's ordered the generals to have most of the new troops in place in six months, much faster than previously assumed possible.

He wants NATO to provide another 5000 troops. NATO leadership says it will provide 7000 new troops. But that decision won't be taken in terms of actual commitments from NATO nations till an international conference on Afghanistan at the end of next month in London.

Obama plans to protect big population areas while heavily degrading Taliban forces and spinning up the training of Afghan forces.

And Obama wants to withdraw most American troops in three years, reiterating that he'll start withdrawing troops in the middle of 2011. But how quickly those troops are withdrawn is up in the air.

The plan is predicated on pushing back the Taliban, which the military says presently control a third of the provinces, to provide a space for a rapid build-up of Afghan security forces.

A lot of things have to go right for this very ambitious plan, which sounds a great deal like Vietnamization, which worked wonders for Richard Nixon, to work. But you can bet that Obama wants most American troops out of Afghanistan by the time of his re-election.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Sam Black: Waking the Sleepy Nuclear Watchdog

2009-12-04T09:20:19Z

This article was written by my friend Kelsey Hartigan.

Facing problems like a defiant Iran that is now resolving to construct an additional 10 enrichment plants, a nuclear North Korea, and an uncooperative Syria, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a difficult path ahead of it. The former head of the international nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, has left his successor, Yukiya Amano of Japan, with an underfunded and politically charged agency. The IAEA Amano is inheriting today is a far cry from the agency that Hans Blix bequeathed to ElBaradei twelve years ago. How Amano will deal with the files ElBaradei left on his desk is unclear--but we should all wish him luck. He will need it.

An early supporter of ElBaradei, Washington "discreetly influenced" the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors selection process in 1997 and helped win its support for ElBaradei as Director General. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [subscription required] has described ElBaradei's 12-year tenure as an evolution from a "shy, circumspect Assistant Deputy Director-General from Egypt" to a "highly visible" Nobel Laureate who clashed with the Bush administration on more than one occasion.

ElBaradei's "complex legacy" will largely be determined by the outcome of pending disputes. The turning point in ElBaradei's tenure was the US invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, a month after then Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the UN Security Council on Iraq's alleged WMD program, ElBaradei went before the Council and said that the US claims were false; Iraq had no centrifuge manufacturing plans and the British documents stating Iraq had sought to obtain uranium oxide from Africa had been forged. From that point forward, ElBaradei's Iraq experience and disdain for unwarranted unilateral action infiltrated nearly every other case that came across his desk--particularly Iran.

Criticized as being "soft" on Iran, ElBaradei was reluctant to utilize the full force of the IAEA and access suspect nuclear sites. In the wake of North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Iraq debacle, ElBaradei likely saw swift action as being too rash--especially since Iran rounded out Bush's legendary "axis of evil." Nonetheless, the same criticisms were made with regard to Syria's nuclear program; too much time, not enough action.

How Amano will handle these same situations remains to be seen. As noted in the Time's brief bio of Amano, it seems that the Japanese diplomat will be less politically active than his predecessor. Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has applauded Amano's apolitical outlook, which, coming from Bolton, doesn't necessarily inspire much confidence. Amano himself has made it clear that he intends to take a less political approach:

The IAEA's basic function is not political negotiation but implementing already agreed safeguards. Remarks by the director have political implications which, if made without properly assessing these implications, can be very dangerous.

Even so, Amano's election was marred by a divisive debate that widened the gap between developed and developing nations. Most developed countries, including the United States, supported Amano's bid and his ideas about depoliticizing the agency. A majority of developing nations, however, supported Abdul Minty, a South African with an advocacy streak that mirrored ElBaradei's. Amano edged out Minty by just one vote; an unusually close outcome for the traditionally unified Board of Governors.

If Amano wants stay out of the political rigmarole and stick to monitoring nuclear activities--more power to him. But with the Additional Protocol, which grants the IAEA more comprehensive inspection authorities, in force in just 93 countries, and restricted access to Iranian, Syrian, and North Korea facilities, Amano won't be able to avoid becoming embroiled in the same political disputes that mired his predecessor's term.

In his final month as director, ElBaradei spoke at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Venting anger built up over the years, ElBaradei balked at the disparity between the expectations of the IAEA and its severe lack of funding and authority: "In many cases, we are a sleepy watchdog because we don't have the authority."

As compliance with the IAEA's Additional Protocol is still voluntary, the agency can only inspect declared facilities through announced inspections. As a result, the IAEA is essentially relegated to knocking on doors and asking for permission to inspect these facilities. Moreover, with dilapidated labs and insufficient access to developed satellite monitoring areas, verification mechanisms like environmental sampling and satellite monitoring are typically supplied by outside parties, further stifling the agency's authority and independence. In ElBaradei's words: "I'm at the mercy of the suppliers." Such shortfalls seriously hamper the agency's ability to detect clandestine facilities, a dangerous loophole of the international nonproliferation regime.

Funding is another major issue. To put this in perspective: The New York State Police Department had a $672 million budget for the 2008/2009 fiscal year. That same year, the IAEA had a regular budget of approximately $415 million. The mere fact that the budget of a state police force is comparable--let alone more than 50% larger--than that of the international body which is responsible for ensuring that the nuclear work and materials in 150 countries is not used to build nuclear weapons should indicate the severity of the IAEA's financial situation.

Will Amano be forced to pick pocket the NY State Police?

Cash-strapped or not, Amano will have to deal with these same realities as he takes on the Iranian, North Korean, and Syrian programs--to name just the headline challenges. A recent editorial in the LA Times offers an interesting--though unrealistic--perspective on how Iran should be dealt with and argues that because of the negotiations' political nature, the IAEA should stay out of the talks.

Some observers say that Iran has the technical capacity to develop a bomb, and the world should accept that and focus on preventing Tehran from taking the next step. Others say we need stronger inspection regimes for the IAEA and stiffer penalties for those found to be in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. Still others say that disarmament by the nuclear powers would ease the appetites of nuclear have-nots.

Our position is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be destabilizing for the region and the world and must be avoided if at all possible. But as stated in "Iran: Where We Are Today," a staff report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the answer to Iran's nuclear ambitions "is not technical but political." The nuclear dispute reflects distrust between Iran and the United States, and the solution must be negotiated by political leaders--not the IAEA.

There is no doubting the underlying political characteristics of the Iranian situation, but excluding the IAEA from negotiations will only serve to further weaken the watchdog, which already suffers from a lack of power and financial backing. The IAEA was set up as an "Atoms for Peace" agency in 1957 and then asked in 1970 to enforce the safeguards system set up by the NPT. Iran has breached those safeguards and abused its supposedly civilian program--if the IAEA is not allowed to help find a solution it will only undercut the IAEA's international status as the top nuclear authority. The IAEA can help ease political sensitivities and provide impartial information and suggestions. For that to happen, it must be given the authority and resources necessary for it to finally do its job. If Amano is serious about taking a less political approach, Iran is the perfect opportunity to implement his strategy.

Iran Targets Online Critics Worldwide, Relatives Back Home

2009-12-04T05:27:49Z

In recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide -- not just prominent dissidents -- who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran's elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program.

Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.

Read more: Protests, Youtube, Iran, Twitter, Critics, Facebook, World News

Greg Mitchell: Was U.S. Soldier Who Killed Two Army Buddies Shattered by Iraq Tragedy?

2009-12-03T23:54:56Z

It's gotten remarkably little coverage so far -- perhaps because there's no "terrorist" angle -- but we're now catching up with the case of an Iraq war vet now captured and suspected of killing two of his fellow servicemen, age 20 and 23, near the army base at Fort Drum, N.Y., where they all served.

Spc. Joshua Hunter, a military cop, fled to Ohio and has now been brought back to New York. It's not known what sparked the murders but he had returned from 15 months in Iraq. The two victims served with him there and his wife says he considered them his "best friends."

Tonight, the AP talked to his wife, who said he had seen a good friend die at close range in Iraq, and held the victim in his arms afterward. He was totally changed when he got home, flying into rages, "abusive," sleepless, "edgy." His father and mother tell much the same story but it is unconfirmed by the military.

Earlier today, the Watertown paper, near Fort Drum, cited quotes from Hunter's My Space page:

I dont need anyone but me, I am cold and heartless. unhappiness can be a way of life, but im not gonna be one of those little bitches who kills themselves i will take down anyone who gets in my way by any means necessary.

After using some profanities, he continued, "i will not be stopped until i get my revenge. i am angry at the world and i will take it out on anyone... ."

The AP's story tonight kicks off:

Relatives of a Fort Drum soldier accused of stabbing his two Army buddies to death said Thursday that he told them he saw his best friend "blown to pieces" in Iraq and came back a changed man: abusive, violent, sleepless, edgy and plagued by flashbacks.

Hunter's wife, Emily Hunter, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that her husband was outgoing before he went to war, but when he returned stateside, he was an emotional wreck. "He wasn't in any good mental shape at all," Emily Hunter said. "I tried to get him to go to therapy. They prescribed him medicine and stuff, but it just wasn't enough."

She said he saw a therapist at Fort Drum because of his volatile emotions and violent outbursts. He'd just burst into tears; spouts of anger or sadness," she said. "There'd be one emotion but it would be really deep, just extremely happy or extremely sad. His emotions were always on the rocks."

Emily Hunter said her husband was haunted by one image: "He saw his best friend get blown up to pieces and he tried to put him back together," she said. "He was never right after that."

The AP also talked to Hunter's mother, Judy, who said he was not the same after coming home.

He had trouble sleeping and would stay up for days on end. He sometimes suffered flashbacks. Though her son never talked to her about the war, he did confide in his father about "the trauma he went through," she said.

She added: "Something went desperately wrong."

A story tonight in the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, W. Va., reports:

Joshua Hunter told his wife, Emily, that he and his two friends -- both fellow soldiers and roommates of him and his wife -- had been drinking at their off-base residence near Fort Drum in New York. He woke to find both servicemen dead. He freaked out, fled upstate New York and called his wife from a hotel room in Wheelersburg, Ohio, where he was arrested on Wednesday.

UPDATE: Some have now raised questions about his claims of witnessing death at close range in Iraq.

More here.

Greg Mitchell's latest book is "Why Obama Won." His book "So Wrong for So Long" includes many stories on Iraq vet problems, murders and suicides. He blogs here and can be reached here. .

Ir Amim: New Construction in East Jerusalem: What It Really Means

2009-12-03T19:58:40Z

By Orly Noy, Ir Amim Spokesperson

The recent diplomatic and journalistic storm over plans to expand the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem exposed a fundamental difference of view between Israel and many of its strongest supporters. Reacting to news that plans for 900 new dwellings in Gilo were to be approved by the Jerusalem Planning Committee, the White House was said to be "dismayed" by the move, and the UN General Secretary Ban-Ki Moon "deplored" it. The two statements, and others coming from Europe, insist that the status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiations between the parties, and that neither should take actions to pre-empt the outcome of such negotiations.

In Israel, meanwhile, politicians and the public, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, responded angrily to such international protests, describing them as unwarranted intervention in Israel's affairs. Why should foreign powers tell Israel what and how to build in one of the large neighborhoods of its capital? asked residents of Gilo, while the Office of the Prime Minister explained that "construction plans in Jerusalem are municipal issues, just as they are in Tel-Aviv and Haifa."

Reactions in Israel reflect a widely shared assumption, which developed over the four decades since Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared it part of "United Jerusalem." The large Jewish neighborhoods Israel built on expropriated lands in the annexed areas are home to about 200,000 Israeli Jews, who represent every social and political group in the country. They are accepted as a natural and permanent part of metropolitan Jerusalem and of Israel. Very few refer to them as "settlements," and even steadfast supporters of a future Palestinian state do not expect these neighborhoods to be included in its new borders. It is to this consensus that Netanyahu appeals in his rejection of the international protests over construction in Gilo.

The Israeli consensus ignores two critical issues, which can explain why the rest of the world responded to the Gilo plans with such alarm and warnings. First, there is the fact that international law does not distinguish between the areas annexed by Israel in 1967 and the rest of the West Bank and Gaza. They are all considered occupied territory and, as such, their disposition cannot be decided by the occupying force unilaterally. It must be resolved through diplomatic negotiations and international agreements. Even countries known for their support of Israel do not accept the legality of Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem. None has set its embassy in the capital.

The quick reaction by foreign governments and international organizations points to the second critical problem in the Gilo plans. These are not simply plans for routine construction in an existing urban space. Instead, they are part of a series of construction projects that are intended to form a wide swath of Jewish neighborhoods on the South Eastern parameter of metropolitan Jerusalem. Thus, the 900-unit residential expansion in "Mordot Gilo," discussed by the Jerusalem Planning Committee on November 17, is just the first stage of a larger expansion of Gilo to the east and south that will total about 3000 units. Other plans include the new neighborhood of Giv'at Ya'el to the west of Gilo (14,000 units), which will swallow the Palestinian village of Walajeh; the new neighborhood of Giv'at Hamatos east of Gilo (about 3,700 residential units, as well as 1,100 hotel rooms, public buildings etc.); and an expansion of the Har Khoma neighborhood to the west (about 1,400 units).

If realized, these plans would connect Israeli Jerusalem to the Gush Etzion settlements. At the same time, the swath of Israeli neighborhoods on the South East would join the neighborhoods that close on Jerusalem from the North and North East, thus cutting a major territorial bridge between the future Palestinian state and East Jerusalem. Like the Palestinians, the US, UN and the Europeans all understand the real nature of the construction in Gilo and the neighboring areas. They know it violates the outlines for a future Palestinian state as drawn at Camp David, Taba, and the recent negotiations between Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian President Abas. They know it would undermine any future peace agreement. This is why they object and protest.

Richard Allen Smith: Afghanistan: A Broken Promise to Military Families

2009-12-03T18:27:00Z

For the last several years, our Armed Forces have been plagued by a lack of what is known as dwell time -- the amount of time Soldiers have at home with their families between deployments. In 2008, I was personally assured by an Obama campaign surrogate that dwell time would be increasing under Obama's military leadership. Even in January of this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured military families that they would have more time together before sending their loved ones back to combat:

WASHINGTON -- Combat troops should get 15 months home for every 12 months deployed by October, and 30 months dwell time by October 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Tuesday.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said the anticipated drawdown in Iraq and planned growth in Army and Marine Corps should allow commanders to give servicemembers longer dwell time.

And even as late as Tuesday, the day of the President's speech outlining his plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in the next six months while not increasing the pace of withdrawal from Iraq, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen stated that this would not have an effect on dwell time:

Deployment lengths for U.S. servicemembers will remain about the same - seven months for Marines, and 12 months for soldiers. With the planned reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq to 50,000 by August 2010, Mullen said he doesn't expect an adverse affect on dwell time - the time between deployments. Dwell time will increase slightly for Marines over the next year and for soldiers over the next two years, he said.

And in fact, directly after the President's speech, I personally spoke with a senior White House official who informed me that all of the service chiefs had reviewed this strategy and that no adverse effects on dwell time were anticipated.

So is everyone good on that time line? In 2008 during the campaign, in January right after the inauguration, the day before the speech, and directly after the speech military families were assured that their time with their loved ones would not be lessened as a result of this already questionable strategy.

Well, VoteVets.org didn't buy into that math, and it appears that was for good reason:

The build up also will put more strain on troops by giving them less time than hoped for at home. Mullen said supplying the extra forces for Afghanistan while there are still so many in Iraq will mean putting off for a couple of years the goal of lengthening the time they rest and retrain at home in between tours of duty -- a period the military calls "dwell time." The Army had been moving toward giving two years of dwell time between each one-year tour.

That's from Congressional testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Afghanistan strategy, spoken the day after Mullen told us dwell time would be increasing and a few hours after the White House assured me that this policy would have no adverse affect on dwell time.

Reacting to Admiral Mullen's testimony, Iraq War Veteran and VoteVets.org Chairman Jon Soltz voiced his own concerns:

This is just one of the troubling consequences of the Obama strategy for Afghanistan. Can we really guarantee Dwell Time for troops at least equal to the length of their deployments? What about ending Stop Loss, or not using the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), or mobilizations that are no longer than 12 months for the National Guard and Reserve? All of those could be in jeopardy. These concerns are why VoteVets.org can't endorse this strategy. The math doesn't add up, and Admiral Mullen's testimony raises more concerns and questions than answers.

Admiral Mullen's testimony simply illustrates that the concerns voiced in the aftermath of the Command-in-Chief's speech by VoteVets.org are real, legitimate and valid. The question, on this issue, now becomes whether the effect on dwell time is an isolated issue, or the first in the force sustainability card house to fall with 12-month deployments and an end to stop-loss tumbling after. The President and his national security apparatus made a promise to America's military families, and those families deserve to have the promise kept.

Syria: Fatal blast on Iranian pilgrims' bus was not terrorism

2009-12-03T08:46:14Z

Syria on Thursday denied terrorism was behind a bomb blast that ripped through a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims near a major Shi'ite religious shrine in Damascus, leaving at least twelve dead.
...

Syria blast 'was an accident'

2009-12-03T06:01:53Z

Syrian interior minister says deaths in bus explosion due to human error.

Syria bus explosion claims lives

2009-12-03T05:03:57Z

Several people killed and more injured in a blast in Damascus.

Many casualties in Syria explosion

2009-12-03T04:16:01Z

Al Jazeera reports several people killed and injured in a blast in Damascus.

Damascus Bus Bomb: 'Up To 12' Killed In Syria Explosion

2009-12-03T03:51:33Z

DAMASCUS, Syria — A blast at a gas station in a Damascus suburb killed three people Thursday, gutting the back of an empty bus and blowing out nearby windows, officials said.

Syria's interior minister, Said Mohammad Sammour, ruled out a terrorist attack.

Cooperative Israeli-Palestinian Project Plants Strawberry Fields (VIDEO)

2009-12-02T18:17:49Z

Qalqilyah is an unlikely site for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation -- a Palestinian town in the West Bank, it's home to the wall Israel built to keep out Palestinian attacks. But it's now also home to a growing strawberry fields planted by Israelis and Palestinians working together, World Focus' Arieh O'Sullivan reported.

Backed by international donors and the Peres Center for Peace, the purpose of the strawberry fields is to boost the Palestinian economy, with Israeli farming experts providing irrigation equipment and training, O'Sullivan said.

"We hope that the strawberry crop can be identified as a peace product that was grown by cross-border activity," said Oren Blonder, a project manager at the Peres Center for Peace.

The plan is to market the strawberries in Europe for Christmas and to sell them to Ben & Jerry's, O'Sullivan reported.

The visit by Israeli agricultural trainers wasn't entirely without politics, as it was monitored by Palestinian security forces. However, both sides seemed to have good intentions.

"Our hope here is that if this situation will continue, that Qalqilyah will stop being the capital of terrorism and bombing it was before and will become a capital of strawberries," Lt. Gal Levant, an Israeli liaison officer, said.

WATCH the full report:

Iraqi Women Forced Into Sex Slavery

2009-12-02T16:42:42Z

Rising numbers of Iraqi women are being sold into sexual slavery every year because of the waning economy and dire security situation.

Amir Ardebili: International Sting Operation Captures Iranian Arms Dealer, Brought To US (VIDEO)

2009-12-02T13:59:25Z

U.S. authorities revealed today that an international sting operation resulted in the apprehension of Amir Ardebili, an Iranian arms dealer who was smuggling American weapons to his native country. U.S. authorities say he was working for the government of Iran. Ardebili believed that he was helping to prepare for war between American and Iran.

He has been in custody since January of 2008, after he was caught in an unnamed Central Asian country in 2007, but American authorities kept the case quiet in order to continue their investigation into his contacts and affiliation with the Iranian government.

Ardebili has plead guilty. Read more here or watch the report from Fox News below.

Richard W. Parker: Rescuing Nuclear Talks with Iran

2009-12-02T11:47:52Z

While all eyes focus on Afghanistan, the
situation with Iran is spiraling out of control.

Iran failed
to accept a tentative deal signed in Vienna last month to send most
of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad – and Secretary of State Clinton announced that the deal could not be changed.

Then Iran refused to stop work on its
newly-declared enrichment facility near Qom. The West responded last week by pushing through an IAEA
Board Resolution reprimanding Iran for that refusal. An infuriated Iran retaliated by
announcing last Sunday that not only will it continue work at Qom, Iran plans
to build ten new enrichment
facilities.

Last May, President Obama said he would assess
“by the end of the year” whether talks are moving in the right direction. Right now, they clearly are moving in
the wrong direction, yet the New Year
will dawn with no good options for the West. Sanctions will fail, war will make things far worse, and
choosing between sanctions and war is a lose-lose proposition.

A couple weeks ago, I blogged on the
promising efforts of outgoing IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to
find a long-term solution to the nuclear stand-off
between Iran and the West. Unfortunately,
hopes for a long-term settlement are receding in a fog of passions aroused by
conflict over two short-term issues that ought to be solvable. A foreign policy fiasco is shaping up that doesn't need to happen.

How to get negotiations back on
track? Let’s begin by taking another
look at the moribund stockpile deal that was supposed to build confidence and ended up undermining it.

The original
plan worked out in Vienna on October 22 was an ingenious
improvisation playing off a serendipitous development: the Tehran Research
Reactor, which manufactures medical isotopes, happens to be running low on fuel. The Vienna plan calls for Iran to ship most
of its known stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further
enrichment and then to France for processing into fuel rods to re-supply the
Tehran Reactor. This seemingly
win-win arrangement would meet Iran’s medical reactor needs while physically
removing from Iran a stockpile of raw LEU that has greatly worried the West.

Both sides welcomed the accord initially. Then criticisms emerged. The objections in Iran, ironically,
came not from Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he praised the
deal as a “victory” for Iran) but from his conservative rivals joined by the
titular leaders of the Green Movement in Iran.

Their objections are two-fold. First, critics point out that the deal as
written requires Iran to give up a major bargaining chip (most of its hard-won stockpile
of LEU) without getting anything of strategic value in exchange (such as
recognition of Iran’s right to enrich).

Second, Ahmadinejad’s rivals in Iran have heaped
scorn on the idea that Iran’s hard-won LEU is being entrusted to France. France may be the only willing country with
the technology to manufacture the fuel rods for the French-made Tehran reactor. But France’s President Sarkozy can
barely bring himself to say the word “Iran” except as part of a call for
tougher sanctions. And France is
remembered in Iran as the country that two decades ago expropriated a
billion-dollar Iranian investment in a multinational enrichment consortium
(Eurodif).

Given these troubling facts, it is actually not surprising that the Vienna deal
would come in for close scrutiny in Tehran.

What to do? The key thing to remember now is that the crux
of the nuclear dispute with Iran is not
the disposition of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium that may or may not
be shipped abroad, but will soon be replaced in any case. The main issue is the long-term future
of enrichment in Iran. Even if the
stockpile deal were to be shelved completely while long-term talks are ongoing,
Iran is highly unlikely to “break out” from Natanz in the next few months, with
barely enough fuel for a single bomb, in the middle of talks aimed at a permanent
accommodation with the West. Certainly
the risks of that scenario are far smaller than the risks flowing from the
alternative outcome of no talks, sanctions and war.

Moreover, the stockpile deal may yet be salvageable.
Iran has said it accepts the deal
in principle but wants greater guarantees of supply. Towards this end, Iran has informally broached the idea of a simultaneous swap on
Iranian soil of raw LEU for
fabricated fuel rods. Nuclear non-proliferation experts Jim Walsh at
MIT and Harold Feiveson at Princeton believe this sort of swap could be
structured in a way that meets Iran’s need for supply assurance with minimal added
risk to U.S. security.

For example: Russia might supply low-enriched uranium
to France. France would process
the uranium into fuel rods for Iran. Iran, upon receiving the fuel rods, would immediately
send the promised LEU to Russia. Any
move by Iran to seize both LEU and fuel rods during the exchange would be immediately detected and would stand as a major provocation not merely to the United States and France, but to Russia,
Iran’s most important ally. The
odds of that happening are quite small.

Other variations of the deal might work as well. The main point for the present is that while Western hawks and neo-cons have interpreted
Iran’s dissatisfaction with the stockpile deal as proof that Ahmadinejad is
just stalling for time -- or evidence that Iran is so riddled by internal faction
that it cannot deal at all -- this is not
true. As seen, Iran has respectable
(if not compelling) reasons for wishing to modify the original stockpile deal. Ahmadinejad
would not stall for time by approving and praising a deal his own side denounces
days later, thereby making himself look foolish. Yes, Iran has internal factions that complicate its foreign
policy. So do we; in fact, the United States leads the
world in bringing home agreements that it fails to ratify or demands be
modified thanks to its own internal factions – the Kyoto Protocol being merely
the latest example. In this case,
Iran could say the United States is so paralyzed by faction that it cannot cope
with proposals to modify a simple stockpile deal.

At the end of the day, the stockpile deal may be salvageable in modified form, or it may not. Either way, long-term talks on the issue that matters most -- the future of Iran's nuclear program writ large -- can and should proceed in a constructive vein.

What is needed now is not hot heads, moralistic
rhetoric and ominous reminders that we’re “losing patience” and “running out of
time.” What is needed is leaders
with the pragmatism and vision to know a workable (if not perfect) deal when
they see it, and the courage to make that deal.

*Richard Parker is a Professor of Law at University of Connecticut Law School and the Founder and Executive Director of the American
Foreign Policy Project (AFPP). The
AFPP’s Iran Policy Group has studied all aspects of the Iran foreign policy
conundrum to produce a comprehensive
website offering rigorous analysis
and policy recommendations on the critical question, “What to do about
Iran.” The views expressed in this
blog are his own

Ramin Pourandarjani, Iran Whistleblower, Died From Drug-Laden Salad

2009-12-02T11:18:48Z

CAIRO — A 26-year-old doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from a delivery salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication, prosecutors say. The findings fueled opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether his death last month was a suicide or murder, Tehran's public prosecutor Abbas Dowlatabadi said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Irmi Olmert, Former Israeli PM's Brother, Punches Reporter, Knocks Him Unconscious

2009-12-02T10:17:05Z

JERUSALEM — The brother of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has knocked an Israeli sports reporter unconscious.

Basketball executive Irmi Olmert was apparently upset over some on-air comments by a reporter for Israel's Channel 5 sports network. Olmert confronted him after a second division game and ended up punching him in the face, briefly knocking him unconscious.