The Pentagon will adopt a new strategy that for the first time orders the military to anticipate that future conflicts will include a complex mix of conventional, set-piece battles and campaigns against shadowy insurgents and terrorists, according to senior officials. The shift is intended to assure that the military is prepared to deal with a spectrum of possible threats, including computer network attacks, attempts to blind satellite positioning systems, strikes by precision missiles and roadside bombs, and propaganda campaigns waged on television and the Internet.

--New York Times

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

US to Limit Airstrikes in Afghanistan to Help Reduce Civilian Deaths - David Zucchino and Laura King, Los Angeles Times. The new US military commander in Afghanistan will limit the use of airstrikes in order to help cut down on civilian casualties, his chief spokesman said Monday. In a "tactical directive" to be issued in coming days, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has ordered new operational standards, including refraining from firing on structures where insurgents may have taken refuge among civilians unless Western or allied troops are in imminent danger, said spokesman Navy Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith. Also under revision are ground search and seizure practices and the treatment of detainees, changes officials hope will reduce tensions between US forces and Afghan citizens, and build a "civilian surge" to improve reconstruction and governance. The directive is described as the most stringent effort yet to protect the lives of Afghan civilians, which McChrystal has identified as the crucial task of NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistani Pro-Government Tribal Leader Killed - Zahid Hussain, Wall Street Journal. A pro-government tribal leader opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistan Taliban, was shot dead Tuesday, dealing a blow to the Pakistani military's offensive against the militants in the lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Qari Zainuddin, a leader of a rival faction of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, was killed in his house in Dera Ismail Khan when one of his guards opened fire on him, according to local police and his supporters. Police said the assassin escaped after firing. Baz Mohammad, an aide of the tribal leader who also was wounded, told the Associated Press that a guard barged into a room at Mr. Zainuddin's compound after morning prayers and opened fire. "It was definitely Baitullah's man who infiltrated our ranks, and he has done his job," Mr. Mohammad told the AP. So far no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistani Jets Hit Militants Near Afghan Border - Voice of America. Pakistani officials have reported fresh fighting in the South Waziristan tribal region, where the military is preparing a new offensive targeting a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban leadership. Officials said jets firing on suspected militant positions killed at least 14 people earlier Monday, hours after gunmen fired rockets at local army bases. Officials said most of the dead were militants. Witnesses said several women were among those killed. No government casualties were reported. Days after Pakistan's government opened up a new front targeting the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, officials said they are scaling back the operation in the greater Swat valley. A military statement said troops are in the final phase of eliminating militants in Swat. The army said forces killed 22 militants in the latest fighting, bringing the total to 1,592 militants killed since operations began.

Pakistan Villagers Revolt Against Taleban After Militants Want Women They Widowed - Jeremy Page and Rehmat Mehsud, The Times. It was the Taleban’s demand to take the women they had widowed that was the last straw for the residents of Upper Dir. When the militants arrived in their mountainous corner of northwestern Pakistan in February the locals cautiously welcomed them, thinking they were waging jihad against foreign troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. Some even joined them, attracted by the five or six pounds a day they paid. Over the next three months, however, Upper Dir’s residents were increasingly angered by the Taleban’s criminal activities and disrespect for local customs, according to residents and Pakistani officials. In early June elders asked them to leave the five villages they had occupied. The Taleban responded on June 5 with a suicide attack on a local mosque that killed 39 people. The next day they told the elders to give them the women who had been widowed in the attack. Instead, the elders summoned men from 30 surrounding villages, told them to fetch their weapons (many men in the region own a gun), and launched a “lashkar” - or tribal militia - of more than 1,000 people to drive out the Taleban.

Bomber Kills 8 Civilians in Afghanistan - Voice of America. Afghan authorities say back-to-back explosions have killed as many as eight civilians in the eastern province of Khost. Officials say at least 40 people were hurt Monday in explosions outside the electric company headquarters in the provincial capital, Khost City. Witnesses say the first blast was small. They say the second explosion was caused by a suicide bomber on a motorbike and was much greater in intensity. It is not clear who was responsible for the attack, or who they were targeting. Also in Khost Monday, NATO says its troops shot and killed an Afghan civilian in his car. The international force says the car failed to heed a warning to stop. Hours earlier, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed three Afghan soldiers in southern Kandahar province.

US Reaches Deal to Use Kyrgyzstan Airport - Associated Press. The United States and Kyrgyzstan have reached a deal for using a Kyrgyz airport to transport US non-lethal military supplies to Afghanistan, a senior Kyrgyz official said today, four months after the country said US troops would be evicted. The accord to use Manas airport as "center of transit shipments" would fall short of US hopes of maintaining the facility as a full-fledged military airbase. But it would provide a much needed logistical support base as the US-led coalition ramps up operations against the increasingly bold Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. A tentative deal was agreed upon Monday and a Kyrgyz parliamentary committee was due to consider the agreement today, said the official, who asked not to be named since the announcement had not yet been made.

Afghanistan’s Failing Forces - New York Times editorial. The news from Afghanistan is grim. In the first week of June, there were more than 400 attacks, a level not seen since late 2001. President Obama was right to send more American troops to fight. That violence will surely increase as strengthened ground forces step up the pressure on Taliban and Al Qaeda sanctuaries. But it is also true that there can be no lasting security - and no exit for American forces - until Afghanistan has a functioning army and national police that can hold back the insurgents and earn the trust of Afghan citizens. Neither comes close today. Washington has already spent 7 ½ years and more than $15 billion on failed training programs. President George W. Bush’s Pentagon never sent enough trainers (most of those available were assigned to Iraq) to systematically embed American advisers in Afghan Army units, an approach now paying dividends in Iraq.

IRAQ

Iraqi National Police Stepping Up Role as a Viable Security Force - Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes. Last Monday, an Iraqi National Police commander north of Baghdad brought Capt. Chris Manglicmot an aerial map printed from Google. It showed Hussainiyah, a town of 500,000 about north of Baghdad. The commander, Maj. Balasem from the 2nd Brigade, 1st National Police Division, already had planned to search the city’s northern rim the next morning for caches of weapons. What he wanted from the Americans were better maps, some helicopters and a dog. This is how it’s going to work in the coming months, US commanders say: The Iraqis will plan the raids and missions. The Americans will supplement them with air support and bomb-sniffing canines, among other expensive assets. "We’re in their way," says Manglicmot, the planning officer for 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, part of the 1st Cavalry Division. "We’ve hit the flip-flop." As the June 30 deadline nears for scaling back US troops from the cities, American commanders are pushing Iraqi forces to take the lead on security. The trust and success rates between US and Iraqi units still vary widely throughout the country.

‘We Are Ready,’ Iraqi General Warns Militants at Sadr City Transfer - Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes. The top Iraqi army general in Baghdad warned terrorists Saturday to "stay in your homes" or face a fight as US troops pull back from Iraq’s cities at the end of the month. "We are ready to fight you if you try to attack our citizens," Gen. Abud Kambar al-Malliki said during a ceremony to mark the Americans’ departure from a base on the edge of Sadr City. "Those who hide in dark holes, we are ready to have the earth shaking above your head," the general told a small crowd of US Army officials, Iraqi government representatives and sheiks from Sadr City. "We will find you in every corner where you hide." The general’s warning came minutes before the US Army signed papers leaving Joint Security Station Sadr City to the 44th Iraqi Army Brigade, part of the 11th Iraqi Army Division. The transfer is one of dozens the Americans have made in recent weeks to comply with a June 30 deadline to move combat troops out of cities.

At Least 26 Killed in Iraq Violence - Voice of America. Authorities in Iraq say at least 26 people were killed in a series of attacks Monday. They say at least seven people died in a suicide bombing in western Baghdad. Authorities say the blast near municipal offices in Abu Ghraib injured 13 people. Police say at least three students were killed on their way to final exams when a roadside bomb exploded near their mini-bus in Baghdad's Shi'ite neighborhood of Sadr City. At least 12 people were injured. In the capital's Karrada neighborhood, a car bomb killed five people. Security officials report several attacks in the northern city of Mosul. They say unidentified attackers shot and killed two Iraqi soldiers while two police officers were shot and killed in another part of the city. Officials say a civilian was shot and killed in a third incident. And authorities say a roadside bomb killed three people and injured 30 in northern Baghdad's Shaab district. Also Monday, Iraqi military officials said three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing northeast of Baghdad. The violence comes as US troops prepare to pull out of Iraqi cities by the end of this month.

Blasts Kill 22 Across Baghdad - Ernesto Londoño and Nada Bakri, Washington Post. A series of explosions across Baghdad on Monday left at least 22 people dead and dozens wounded, heightening fear among residents and Iraqi leaders of a resurgence of violence on the eve of the withdrawal of most US troops from urban areas. The deadliest attack occurred in the Abu Ghraib district, on the western outskirts of the capital, shortly before noon when a suicide bomber attempted to ram a car packed with explosives into a local council building where a meeting was underway. The blast killed seven Iraqis and wounded 10 people, including three American soldiers, Iraqi officials said. Maj. David Shoupe, a US military spokesman, said the assailant struck a civilian vehicle before reaching the building. A US military vehicle parked outside the building sustained damage, he said.

Iraq Hit by Fresh Wave of Attacks - BBC News. Bomb attacks in the capital Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq have killed at least 29 people and wounded 75, police say. In the latest attack, a roadside bomb killed four people in a marketplace in Baghdad's Husseiniya district. Other victims included three students on their way to sit exams and a child of four. More than 70 people died in a truck bombing in Kirkuk on Saturday. The attacks come days before US troops are scheduled to pull out of Iraq's towns and cities. With so many attacks in such a short space of time, it appears insurgents are determined to make things look as unstable as possible as the pull-out deadline approaches, the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says.

In Nineveh, Tensions Between Iraqi Kurds and Arabs Simmer - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. On a quiet stretch of road flanked by the rolling hills of northern Nineveh province stands a checkpoint many fear could become the next frontline in a new conflict over age-old issues of land and power dividing Arabs and Kurds. To the west lies the provincial capital, Mosul: insurgent-infested and, since April, governed by a hard-line Arab nationalist group that is seeking to affirm Nineveh's Arab identity. To the east lies a string of mostly Kurdish, mostly calm towns and villages that nominally are part of Nineveh but that have been controlled by Kurdish-speaking peshmerga forces since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Fresh tension in the area comes from the Kurds' refusal to accept the authority of the region's new Arab governor, Atheel Najafi, unless they gain positions in Mosul's city council, currently controlled by Najafi's Hadba coalition.

IRAN

Top Clerical Council in Iran Rejects Plea to Annul Vote - Michael Slackman, New York Times. Iran’s most powerful oversight council has refused to nullify the contested presidential election just one day after it announced that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to Iran’s leadership in 30 years, Iranian state television said Tuesday. On Press TV, the English-language state television satellite broadcaster, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, declare: “If a major breach occurs in an election, the Guardian Council may annul the votes that come out of a particular affected ballot box, polling station, district, or city.” “Fortunately, in the recent presidential election we found no witness of major fraud or breach in the election,” he said. “Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place.” He was speaking late on Monday in Tehran and his remarks were posted early Tuesday, Tehran time.

Iran's Guardian Council Rules Out New Vote - Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal. Iran's top election review board ruled out an annulment of June 12 election results, a day after it admitted that voter irregularities may have affected some three million votes. The statement by the Guardian Council, which is required to certify the elections, is the latest in a series of moves by the Islamic Republic to try to put the elections and its violent aftermath behind it. Last Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei essentially said debate over the results had ended, and in a sermon he ordered a halt to protests by opposition supporters. A day after that sermon, he deployed forces en masse across Tehran to disperse - often brutally - further demonstrations. The government has said 10 to 13 people died in those clashes, and hundreds of protesters were arrested.

Iran Authorities Say Disputed Vote Count Will Stand - Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Iran's Guardian Council today ruled out the possibility of nullifying the country's disputed presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, saying it could find no evidence of any "major" irregularities, according to a report carried by the website of the state-owned English-language Press TV satellite news channel. "Fortunately, in the recent presidential election we found no witness of major fraud or breach in the election," said Abbas-Ali Kadkhodai, the council's spokesman, according to the report. "Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place." He said most of the irregularities alleged by the defeated reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi occurred before the election, which he suggested were outside the scope of the Guardian Council's authority.

Iranian Legislative Panel Hints At Legal Action Against Mousavi - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. The Iranian parliament's judiciary committee raised the possibility Monday of legal action against opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, while government forces violently dispersed a crowd protesting alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election. After state news media took aim at Mousavi on Sunday, accusing him of supporting an illegal mass movement, Ali Shahrokhi, head of the parliamentary judiciary committee, suggested that the former prime minister was criminally liable for the recent unrest. "Mousavi's statements inflame public opinion and are thus criminal acts," Shahrokhi told the semiofficial Fars News Agency. "The necessary circumstances for legal action against Mousavi are there."

Protests in Iran Diminish Amid Security Crackdown - Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal. In central Tehran on Monday, demonstrators and authorities engaged in what has become a near daily cat-and-mouse routine: Protesters gathered in groups of several hundred shouting, "Death to the dictator." Iranian security forces chased them, waving batons and sticks, according to witnesses. The security forces - present in large numbers - also used tear gas and fired gunshots into the air to scatter demonstrators. They easily dispersed the crowd, arresting men and women, dragging them away in handcuffs and loading them onto buses, witnesses said. The protest was much smaller than recent demonstrations, and Monday appeared to mark the second day of relative calm in Tehran after security responded in force to demonstrations Saturday. Supporters of opposition candidates have staged more than a week of sometimes-violent protests since the declared victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 12 polls.

Eyewitnesses Say Iranian Police Use Force to Break Up Protest - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Witnesses say Iranian riot police have fired tear gas to break up a new opposition rally in the centre of the capital Tehran, hours after a stern warning to protesters. According to eyewitness reports, Iranian police Monday attacked hundred of demonstrators attending an opposition rally in a Tehran square with tear gas. Demonstrators had gathered on Haft-e Tir Square despite the warning from Iran's Revolutionary Guards against holding unapproved rallies. Earlier, defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi urged his supporters to continue demonstrating, but "with restraint." "The country belongs to you," Mr. Mousavi told supporters on his Web site Kalam, adding that "it is your right to protest lies and fraud," in reference to disputed election results which gave a landslide victory to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guards, however, vowed to crush further protest rallies, telling opposition supporters to be ready for a "revolutionary confrontation" if they continue to demonstrate. Iran analyst Mehrdad Khonsari with the London-based Center for Arab and Iranian Studies says that government tactics to quell demonstrations is having limited results.

Police Break Up New Tehran Rally - BBC News. Iranian riot police have fired tear gas to break up a new opposition rally in the centre of the capital Tehran, hours after a stern warning to protesters. Some 1,000 people had gathered on Haft-e Tir Square despite the warning from Iran's Revolutionary Guards against holding unapproved rallies. Basij militiamen wielding clubs were brought in to reinforce the police. The Guards, an elite armed force, vowed to crack down on new street protests over the presidential election results. On Friday Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned protests, prompting street violence in which at least 10 people died. Severe reporting restrictions placed on the BBC and other foreign media in Iran mean protest reports cannot be verified independently.

We'll Crush Dissent, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Warn - John Lyons, The Australian. Iran's Revolutionary Guards last night threatened to crush any further opposition protests over the presidential election, warning demonstrators to prepare for a "revolutionary confrontation" if they take to the streets again. Police late last night fired teargas and live bullets in the air to disperse about 1000 protesters in Tehran's Haft-e Tir square who defied that ominous warning from the fist of the Iranian regime. They heeded the call of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who urged his supporters to continue demonstrations, despite the arrest of hundreds of protesters and a growing death toll. However, hundreds of anti-riot police quickly put an end to last night's demonstration. Witnesses said police at the scene tried to prevent any gathering, even small groups. At the subway station at Haft-e Tir, police did not allow anyone to stand still, asking them to keep walking and separating people who were walking together. A statement posted on the Guards' website last night warned protesters to "be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confrontation with the Guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces".

Layers of Armed Forces Wielding Power of Law - Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times. The Revolutionary Guards, the Praetorian guard that has long protected the government of Iran, posted a notice on its Web site on Monday saying that further protests would not be tolerated. “The Guards will firmly confront in a revolutionary manner rioters and all those who violate the law,” the notice said. Anyone attempting to identify divisions within the Iranian security forces that may dilute the government’s ability to stop the protests has thus far searched in vain, according to Iranian analysts and American government officials. So far, the government has deployed the Revolutionary Guards, Basij vigilante squads and special riot police officers to confront demonstrators protesting the June 12 presidential election results. A rumor that at least one decorated commander of the Revolutionary Guards was arrested for refusing to suppress the demonstrations has been impossible to confirm.

Video Clip of Student's Last Breath Makes Her Martyr of Tehran - Martin Fletcher, The Times. Her name was Neda Salehi Agha Soltan and she was a philosophy student. But the manner of her death has turned her into an instant, global symbol of the Iranian regime’s brutality. This innocent woman aged 26 was shot in the chest during running battles between opposition protesters and Iranian security forces in Tehran on Saturday. Since then, a grainy, 40-second video showing her final moments, blood streaming from her nose and mouth as a man implores her not to die, has ricocheted around the world on YouTube, blogs and social networking sites. Miss Soltan, whose first name means “voice”, has become a martyr for freedom, Iran’s equivalent of the student who defied China’s tanks in Tiananmen Square. Pictures of the “Angel of Iran” are being held aloft at demonstrations outside Iranian embassies around the world. Tribute sites have been set up on Facebook, and Twitter has been inundated with heart-rending messages.

In a Death Seen Around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests - Nazila Fathi, New York Times. It was hot in the car, so the young woman and her singing instructor got out for a breath of fresh air on a quiet side street not far from the antigovernment protests they had ventured out to attend. A gunshot rang out, and the woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, fell to the ground. “It burned me,” she said before she died. The bloody video of her death on Saturday, circulated in Iran and around the world, has made Ms. Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old who relatives said was not political, an instant symbol of the antigovernment movement. Her death is stirring wide outrage in a society that is infused with the culture of martyrdom - although the word itself has become discredited because the government has pointed to the martyrs’ deaths of Iranian soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war to justify repressive measures. Ms. Agha-Soltan’s fate resonates particularly with women, who have been at the vanguard of many of the protests throughout Iran.

Woman's Slaying In Protests Creates An Opposition Icon - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. A video clip showing the violent death of a 26-year-old woman during Saturday's riots in Tehran has captured the world's attention and turned her into an icon for Iranians who are leveling an unprecedented challenge against their theocratic government. Neda Agha Soltan, whose first name means "the calling" in Farsi, was killed by a gunshot to the heart, and her agonizing death in the street was filmed by at least two bystanders using cellphone cameras. The clips have been distributed worldwide on sites such as YouTube and inside Iran via Bluetooth. Opposition protesters have carried pictures of her bloodied face to demonstrations and mourning ceremonies, where she is hailed as "a martyr" - a status with deep resonance in Shiite Islam, Iran's dominant faith. In the videos, Agha Soltan is dressed traditionally - wearing a head scarf and a coat that extends past her knees. Seemingly out of nowhere she is struck by a bullet, then falls to the ground and starts bleeding heavily from her nose and mouth. A man can be heard shouting "Neda, don't be afraid" and "Stay with us" as her eyes roll back and her face becomes covered with blood.

Web Pries Lid of Censorship by Iranian Government - Brian Stelter and Brad Stone, New York Times. Shortly after Neda Agha-Soltan bled her life out on the Tehran pavement, the man whose 40-second video of her death has ricocheted around the world made a somber calculation in what has become the cat-and-mouse game of evading Iran’s censors. He knew that the government had been blocking Web sites like YouTube and Facebook. Trying to send the video there could have exposed him and his family. Instead, he e-mailed the two-megabyte video to a nearby friend, who quickly forwarded it to the Voice of America, the newspaper The Guardian in London and five online friends in Europe, with a message that read, “Please let the world know.” It was one of those friends, an Iranian expatriate in the Netherlands, who posted it on Facebook, weeping as he did so, he recalled. Copies of the video, as well as a shorter one shot by another witness, spread almost instantly to YouTube and were televised within hours by CNN. Despite a prolonged effort by Iran’s government to keep a media lid on the violent events unfolding on the streets, Ms. Agha-Soltan was transformed on the Web from a nameless victim into an icon of the Iranian protest movement.

Iran Unrest Reveals Split In US on Its Role Abroad - Scott Wilson, Washington Post. Iran's post-election tumult has exposed the sharply divergent ways in which the Obama administration and its Republican opponents view the nature of American power and the president's role in speaking to political dissent outside the borders of the United States. The debate over how far Obama should go in encouraging the protesters who returned to the streets of Tehran amid clouds of tear gas Monday has emboldened Republicans, who see an opportunity to criticize his foreign policy as too timid. In recent days, GOP leaders have invoked the unambiguous Cold War rhetoric of Ronald Reagan as the model for the message Obama should be sending to the demonstrators, citing the inspiration it provided to millions of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain.

International Criticism of Iranian Government Actions Grows - Michael Bowman, Voice of America. International criticism of Iran's handling of a disputed presidential vote and subsequent protests is mounting, after Iranian media reported the arrest of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani's eldest daughter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel added her voice to a growing chorus of Western leaders demanding respect for civil liberties in Iran. "Human rights and citizens' rights are inseparable, and that is why Germany stands behind the people, and peaceful demonstrations in Iran, who want to make use of their freedom of speech and who want to gather peacefully. I, therefore, demand that Iran's leaders allow peaceful demonstrations, allow free reporting of events, stop the use of violence against demonstrators and free imprisoned people."

Was Iran’s Election Stolen? New Study Makes a Convincing Case - Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor. A statistical analysis of province-by-province voting in Iran’s June 12 presidential election makes a compelling case for wide-spread fraud in the vote that returned conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power and touched off days of bloody protests in Iran. The report, “Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election” published by the Chatham House think tank in London and the Institute of Iranian Studies at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, found instances of greater than 100 percent turnout in two provinces. It also found an improbable 90 percent turnout in four other provinces. The research was based official Iranian data. In the immediate aftermath of the election, with defeated challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters saying the election was stolen, political scientists cautioned that it was possible that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won, given the lack of accurate polling data before the election.

Iran Being Undercut on Nukes, US Says - Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times. Stung by criticism that the US has not condemned Iran's crackdown on demonstrators harshly enough, the Obama administration said Monday that the protests would weaken the current regime and might improve the chances of capping Iran's nuclear program. "Our long-term security interests haven't changed," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "Our interests, as it relates to our grave concern about the help that's provided to terrorists, the grave concern that we have about the pursuit of a nuclear weapon, remain unchanged." At the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly dismissed speculation that the administration is rethinking its engagement policy. Although the "focus is on what's going on in Iran right now" and "this is not about our bilateral relationship," engagement is not "on hold," he said.

The US Must be a Quiet Ally to Iran's Protesters - Los Angeles Times editorial. When weighing a response to an international crisis, a US president defines American interests, examines the political landscape and selects from a menu of generally imperfect options ranging from war to prudent inaction. In the case of Iran, President Obama has rightly determined that it is in the US interest to speak up for the opposition forces' fundamental rights to assembly and free speech, but that he otherwise must refrain from bluster or bullying that would provide a justification for more repression. In weak states, the United States can back popular uprisings and use its formidable influence to usher strongmen out of power, as it did with Ferdinand Marcos and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in the Philippines and Haiti, respectively, in the 1980s. An alternative example is Poland, where US moral support for the Solidarity movement helped tip the balance against a teetering pro-Soviet regime during the Cold War. Yet Iran is neither a US client state nor, apparently, on the verge of collapse.

Neda and Obama - Washington Times editorial. It was the sniper shot heard round the world. One moment, a young woman is standing on the sidewalk, watching the Iranian people stand up to the state. A second later, she crumbles to the sidewalk, blood pumping uselessly out of the gunshot wound in her chest. A faceless police sniper has killed Neda Agha Soltan, but also made her immortal. Her murder was videotaped and sent worldwide. Her death is now the defining image of the 2009 Iranian revolution. For 30 years the world has tolerated this cruel and calculating regime, as it took hostages, paid terrorists and built bombs meant for allied troops in Iraq. Now the people of Iran are pleading their case before the world. While events are still unfolding, some lessons can be drawn regardless of how the revolution ends.

Clerics in Command - The Australian editorial. The whole Muslim world is watching the troubles in Tehran and while fundamentalists who believe democracy is an affront to God will approve of the way the regime is reacting to protests, many millions of others will decide differently. They will conclude that last week's election was a sham. They will conclude that the men who run Iran are more interested in holding on to power than acknowledging the opinion of electors. And they will conclude that this is what inevitably occurs when clerics who claim a divinely authorised right to rule are challenged. What they saw this week is what the entire Muslim world would be like if religious extremists ever had their way - rule by clerical dictatorships that rely less on religion than streetfighting thugs for their authority. Whatever occurs over the coming weeks in Iran, Muslims will look to what is happening there and contrast it with Indonesia, an Islamic nation that is having no trouble conducting a democratic presidential election. In the long run, the events of the past week will demonstrate to Muslims that their governments fear free and fair elections. But while last week's events will erase the appeal of theocracy, in the short term they are an ill omen for Iran. Optimists assume the fact that the regime did not suppress demonstrations on city streets indicates it is divided. They may have a point.

Obama's Iran Policy is a Bomb - Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times opinion. Here is the one immutable fact of Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda as it relates to Iran: It's over. The rule book he came in with is as irrelevant as a tourist guide to the Austro-Hungarian empire. If the forces of reform and democracy win, Obama's plan to negotiate with the regime is moot, for the regime will be gone. And if the forces of reform are crushed into submission by the regime, Obama's plan is moot, because the regime will still be there. If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei come out on top, even the most soulless realists will be repulsed by the blood on the regime's collective hands. Politics and decency will demand that the world condemn or shun the regime. Before June 12, Obama's eagerness to negotiate with Ahmadinejad - ridiculed by his conservative critics - was hailed by the establishment and the left as proof of his high-minded faith in diplomacy, a healthy antidote to George W. Bush's allegedly close-minded approach. But now, if the clerical junta prevails, anyone who shakes hands with Ahmadinejad will have a hard time washing the blood off his own hands.

An Overlooked Force in Iran - Anne Applebaum, Washington Post opinion. Women in sunglasses and headscarves, speaking through megaphones, brandishing cameras, carrying signs: When they first appeared, the photographs of the 2005 Tehran University women's rights protests were a powerful reminder of the true potential of Iranian women. The images were uplifting; they featured women of many ages; and they went on circulating long after the protests themselves died down. Now they have been replaced by a far more brutal and already infamous set of images: The photographs and video taken this past weekend of a young Iranian woman, allegedly shot by a government sniper, dying on the streets of Tehran. I don't know whether the girl in the photographs is destined to become this revolution's symbolic martyr, as some are already predicting. I do know, however, that there is a connection between the violence in Iran over the past week and the women's rights movement that has slowly gained strength in Iran over the past several years.

Religion of Peace - Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal opinion. It isn't always that the words Allahu Akbar sound this sweet to Western ears. It's a muggy Friday afternoon and I'm standing curbside right outside Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York City. Preaching in Farsi is a turbaned Shiite imam named Mohsen Kadivar. Hours earlier, in Tehran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had delivered a bullying sermon at Tehran University, warning the opposition that they would be "responsible for bloodshed and chaos" if they continued to march. Mr. Kadivar's sermon - punctuated by the Allahu Akbars of 20 or so kneeling worshippers - is intended as a direct riposte. Allahu Akbar has also become the rallying cry of the demonstrators in Iran. Mr. Kadivar, 50, is a well-known quantity in Iran. As a young engineering student he was arrested by the Shah's police for agitating against the regime. He later became a seminarian in Qom, where he studied under the increasingly liberal-leaning Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Like his teacher, who had once been the Ayatollah Khomeini's designated successor, Mr. Kadivar ran afoul of the regime. In 1999, he was arrested a second time and jailed for 18 months. He credits Mir Hossein Mousavi - then a university faculty colleague of his - for helping to spring him free. He's now teaching at Duke.

Life and Death in Tehran - Roger Cohen, New York Times opinion. They gathered, the women in black, at Nilofar Square to mourn Neda Agha Soltan, the Iranian student cut down by a single bullet, whose last moments were captured on a video that has gone global. I sat among the mourners in late afternoon, under the plane trees, as candles burned and a prayer was said. The square seemed an oasis. I asked a young woman if she was scared. “Yes,” she said. “I’m scared that all the blood shed for this cause may be wasted.” The cause, of course, is the annulment of Iran’s fraudulent election and, beyond that, freedom. The freedom not to live in a state that slams shut the doors of the mosque next to Nilofar Square because Neda, as a protester, was denied a proper service.

NORTH KOREA

US Keeps Close Eye On North Korean Ship - Jay Solomon and Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon continues to trail a North Korean cargo ship believed headed toward Myanmar, in part because US officials worry that Pyongyang plans to transfer major weapons systems and possibly nuclear technologies to the repressive Southeast Asian country, current and former US officials said. North Korea has used Myanmar ports and airstrips to transfer arms and contraband to third countries, including Iran, these officials said. Myanmar's military government also has purchased on the open market technologies that are potentially usable in a nuclear program, and North Korean arms companies involved in the nuclear trade have become active in Myanmar, said US, Asian and United Nations officials.

S. Korean Minister Says Social Instability Increasing in North - Kurt Achin, Voice of America. South Korea's chief official on North Korea policy says he believes North Korea's recent acts of international defiance are aimed at shoring up power at home. With talks to end the North's nuclear weapons at a standstill, South Korea is intensifying its diplomacy with partners to respond to the North's latest threats. North Korea's official Rodung Sinmun newspaper described the country as a "proud nuclear power" Monday, and warned it would be a "great mistake for the United States to think it will not be hurt" in the event of military conflict on the peninsula. That latest example of shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang comes as the US Navy tracks a North Korean vessel which may be carrying missile parts or other weaponry. Such items are prohibited under the latest United Nations Security Council resolution passed after North Korea's nuclear test last month.

North Korea Defends Nuclear Programme - BBC News. North Korea has boasted of being a "proud nuclear power" and warned the US that it will strike back if attacked. The statement came after US President Barack Obama said Washington was "fully prepared" for a possible North Korean missile test. There have been recent warnings in South Korean and Japanese newspapers that the North is preparing another long-range missile launch. The UN toughened sanctions against the North after a nuclear test on 25 May. The North has also recently test-fired a number of short-range missiles recently, and in April launched a long-range rocket - which it said was to put a satellite into orbit but which the US said was a missile test. Military analysts say North Korea's longest-range missile - the Taepodong-2 - has the potential range to reach Hawaii and parts of Alaska.

THE LONG WAR / HOMELAND SECURITY

Homeland Security Said to Kill Spy Satellite Plan - Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has decided to kill a controversial Bush administration program to use US spy satellites to collect domestic intelligence for counter-terrorism, law enforcement and security, a senior Homeland Security official said Monday evening. The National Applications Office program was established in 2007 to provide up-to-the-minute electronic intelligence to local and state law enforcement. But it has been delayed due to concerns by privacy and civil liberties advocates -- and by some lawmakers -- that it would intrude on Americans' lives. The senior Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said Napolitano had decided to nix it after consulting with state and local law enforcement officials and learning that they had far more pressing priorities than using satellites to collect information and eavesdrop on people.

Judge Orders Guantanamo Detainee's Release - Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post. Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko was tortured by al-Qaeda and imprisoned by the Taliban for 18 months because the groups' leaders thought he was an American spy. Abandoned by his captors in late 2001, he was picked up by US authorities, who shipped him to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on suspicion that he was a member of the two groups. Yesterday, a federal judge ordered Janko's release, saying the government's legal rationale for continuing to detain him "defies common sense."

GAO Cites Gun Sales to Those on Watch List - Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post. People named on the government's terrorism watch list have successfully purchased firearms hundreds of times since 2004, government investigators reported yesterday. In one case, a known or suspected terrorist was able to obtain an explosives license, the Government Accountability Office reported. US lawmakers requested the audit to show how people on the watch list can be stopped from boarding airplanes but not from buying guns. Under federal law, licensed firearms dealers must request an FBI background check for each buyer but cannot legally stop a purchase solely because someone is on the watch list. The study found that people on the list purchased firearms 865 times in 963 attempts over a five-year period ending in February.

Detainees Fear Palau Cannot Protect Them From China - Associated Press. Some Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo Bay who have been offered resettlement in Palau are leery of moving to the tiny Pacific island nation for fear that it cannot protect them from China, Palau's president said Tuesday. Palau sent a fact-finding team to the Guantanamo Bay detention center earlier this month to assess the needs of the 13 Uighurs, Turkic Muslims from the far west of China – where they are wanted as alleged terrorists. President Johnson Toribiong said the men were concerned about the island nation's size and ability to provide for their safety.

FUTURE WAR

Pentagon to Outline Shift in War Planning Strategy - Thom Shanker, New York Times. The Pentagon will adopt a new strategy that for the first time orders the military to anticipate that future conflicts will include a complex mix of conventional, set-piece battles and campaigns against shadowy insurgents and terrorists, according to senior officials. The shift is intended to assure that the military is prepared to deal with a spectrum of possible threats, including computer network attacks, attempts to blind satellite positioning systems, strikes by precision missiles and roadside bombs, and propaganda campaigns waged on television and the Internet. The new strategy has broad implications for training, troop deployment, weapons procurement and other aspects of military planning. In officially embracing hybrid warfare, the Pentagon would be replacing a second pillar of long-term planning. Senior officials disclosed in March that the review was likely to reject a historic premise of American strategy - that the nation need only to prepare to fight two major wars at a time. Driving both sets of developments are lessons learned from the past six years, when the United States has been fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet is stretched to be ready for potentially significant operations elsewhere, Pentagon officials say, such as against Iran, North Korea or even China and Russia. Conflicts with any of those countries would also be expected to present a hybrid range of challenges.

A Weak Spot in Our Defenses - Heather Wilson, Washington Post opinon. Congressional computers have been penetrated, probably by the Chinese. The avionics system of the F-22 fighter may be compromised. Computers of our presidential candidates were hacked into - and probably not by teenagers on a lark. Last year's advance of Russian tanks into Georgia was accompanied by the disruption of Georgian government computer systems. These are only public manifestations of a new reality: Attacks on computer systems will be an integral element of future conflict, and the United States is more dependent on computer networks than any other nation. Both policymakers and the military are in the early stages of coming to grips with this threat. We need to take some important first steps to strengthen our national capability to defend ourselves in cyberspace.

AUSTRALIA

Department of Defence Moves to Bring Horizon Closer - Patrick Walters, The Australian. John Faulkner and Greg Combet will face their first major test in the Defence portfolio next week as federal cabinet is expected to sign off on a sharply revised defence capability plan. The Rudd government will consider cutting the normal 10-year horizon for the $100billion defence capability plan in half, as the Defence Department begins its long quest to find $20bn in savings to pay for new equipment. Defence's plan to truncate the plan to a 2014 horizon further underlines the fiscal uncertainty that surrounds the $26bn Defence budget, despite the government's pledge to increase defence spending by 3 per cent annually in real terms. The DCP provides a fundamental road map for the defence industry, outlining the major capital acquisitions planned by the government. In the next two years, these will include the $16bn decision on the F-35 joint strike fighter as well as multi-billion-dollar investments in new naval helicopters and protected vehicles for the army. The first of the big capital equipment decisions will be the joint strike fighter, with the government expected to sign off on the purchase of up to 100 F-35s by October.

AFRICA

Somali President Declares State of Emergency - Voice of America. Somalia's president has declared a state of emergency as his government tries to fight off an offensive by militant Islamist groups. President Sharif Sheikh Sharif Ahmed spoke to reporters in the capital Mogadishu Monday, following calls from his aides for intervention by foreign troops. Insurgent groups launched an offensive in Mogadishu May 7, sparking clashes that have killed some 300 people and displaced at least 120,000. Earlier, the African Union voiced support for the Somali government, saying it "has the right" to seek help from AU member countries and the international community. In Kenya Monday, Prime Minister Raila Odinga also said Somalia needs military assistance, though he stopped short of saying Kenya will send troops across the border. Mr. Odinga spoke at a joint news conference with Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmake. Ethiopia helped prop up the fragile Somali government for more than two years before withdrawing its troops in January.

Somali 'Thieves' Face Amputation - BBC News. Hardline Islamists have condemned four young Somali men to a double amputation for stealing mobile phones and guns. They will each have a hand and a leg cut off after being convicted by a Sharia court in the capital, Mogadishu. The al-Shabab group has carried out amputations, floggings and an execution in the port of Kismayo but such punishments are rare in the capital. Al-Shabab and its allies control much of southern Somalia and are battling the UN-backed government. Hundreds of residents attended the hearing in north Mogadishu. Armed al-Shabab militants were on guard, while the accused were chained around their ankles.

Darfur Negotiator Sees Chance for Peace - Cassie Fleming, Washington Times. A top Sudanese official said Monday that reconciliation with civilians in the Darfur region is a key goal of the Sudanese government in Khartoum and that he was optimistic that fighting could be stopped. "I found a new spirit in Darfur," Ghazi Salaheddin, an adviser to Sudanese President Omar Bashir and head of the majority faction in parliament, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. "I spoke with citizens there, and they talked about forgiving and forgetting," said Mr. Salaheddin, who recently was put in charge of handling the government's response to the long-running conflict involving tribal militias, government forces and rebel groups in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Tribunal Sentences Former Rwandan Interior Minister to 30 Years for Genocide Role - Derek Kilner, Voice of America. A United Nations court has sentenced a former interior minister of Rwanda to a 30-year prison term for his role in that country's 1994 genocide. Callixte Kalimanzira was convicted on charges of genocide and incitement to commit genocide. "The trial chamber finds unanimously in respect of Callixte Kalimanzira as follows. Count one: guilty of genocide. Count two: dismissed. Count three: guilty of direct and public incitement to commit genocide," said Judge Dennis Byron, head of a three-judge panel, as he announced the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The UN-sponsored court, based in Arusha, Tanzania, convicted Callixte Kalimanzira, 58, on charges of genocide and "direct and public incitement to commit genocide". Kalimanzira had been close to both Rwanda's president and prime minister at the time of the 1994 genocide. According to the court, Kalimanzira did not kill anyone directly, but rather directed thousands of ethnic Tutsis to a hill near Butare, Rwanda's second city in the south of the country, offering food and safety. He then supervised an attack by militias on the location, and ordered police and military reinforcements, according to the 2005 indictment.

UK Announces £5m Aid for Zimbabwe - BBC News. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced an extra £5m ($8m) of aid to Zimbabwe after meeting his Zimbabwean counterpart Morgan Tsvangirai. This takes the total this year to £60m ($98m) but Mr Brown said more money would only come after further reform. He also said the aid would go through aid agencies, not the government in which Mr Tsvangirai shares power with President Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe says it needs $8bn (£4.9bn) to revive its shattered economy. Mr Tsvangirai has been on a tour of Europe and the US to ask for increased funding but many donors are still wary of sending money which could be misused by Mr Mugabe and his allies. Under Mr Mugabe, relations between the UK and its former colony have become severely strained.

The Harare Syndrome - The Times editorial. Morgan Tsvangirai's determination to reverse Zimbabwe's disastrous slide into poverty, starvation and isolation is not in doubt. Even after a manifestly fraudulent election, he agreed to share power with President Mugabe because he realised that the ageing dictator would never surrender power and would drive the country further into ruin rather than rein in his thugs and respect a democratic vote. Mr Tsvangirai's decision, after long negotiation, to accept the role of Prime Minister, despite the crippling restrictions, was not easy. He was brutally persecuted by Mr Mugabe. His supporters were murdered. His wife died recently in a car crash. He took a brave step. But has he been outmanoeuvred? Has he been used by Mr Mugabe to deflect the anger of Zimbabweans and the outside world? Has he become a shield behind which the President and his cronies can continue to evade justice and hang on to their wealth and privileges? Has he, in short, fallen victim to the “Harare syndrome” - identifying with his persecutors and turning a pragmatic blind eye to their appalling crimes?

Obama, Adrift On Sudan - Andrew S. Natsios, Washington Post opinion. Thirty Sudanese political leaders will meet in Washington today with 170 observers from 32 countries and international organizations, as well as four African former prime ministers, to confront the issues that are slowly pushing Sudan over a cliff. The United States ought to be in a commanding position to mediate in these negotiations, as it did in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended 22 years of civil war between Sudan's North and South. But disputes within the Obama administration are inhibiting US efforts to stop Sudan's slide toward civil war at a time when unified American leadership is essential. First, let's consider the situation. Some policymakers continue to call Darfur an ongoing "genocide," but in fact, the conflict has descended into anarchy. "Darfur today is a conflict of all against all," Rodolphe Adada, the joint African Union-United Nations special representative, told the UN Security Council in April. Between Jan. 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, he found some 2,000 fatalities from violence, one third of them civilian. The death of some 700 innocent civilians over a 15-month period, while morally repugnant, is not genocide. It is a low-level insurgency. More civilians died in southern Sudan during the past six months than in Darfur over the past 15 months. Despite such facts and extensive UN Security Office reports showing that genocide is not an accurate description, President Obama continues to use that weighted term.

AMERICAS

Mexican Cartels Lure American Teens as Killers - James C. McKinley Jr., New York Times. When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said. “I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.” Mr. Reta was 13 when he was recruited by the Zetas, the infamous assassins of the Gulf Cartel, law enforcement officials say. He was one of a group of American teenagers from the impoverished streets of Laredo who was lured into the drug wars across the Rio Grande in Mexico with promises of high pay, fancy cars and sexy women. After a short apprenticeship, the young men lived in an expensive house in Texas, available to kill whenever called on.

Mexico's Drug Cartels Slay Rival Street Dealers - Elliot Spagat, Associated Press. Much attention is given to Mexican drug cartels warring over lucrative transport routes to the United States. But more and more, they're battling for an exploding number of Mexican consumers, a market that barely existed a decade ago. While the United States is expected to remain the largest and most coveted market, local consumers are a big and rapidly growing source of cash. That makes street dealers like Mr. Rodriguez prime targets for assassins. Low-level sellers are easy prey for rivals seeking to expand turf because they work openly on street corners without bodyguards or armored cars. Drug dealers account for many of the 10,800 people killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on cartels in 2006 - particularly in border cities, where the battles are fiercest. In Tijuana, they fill at least 90 percent of the body bags, according to top law enforcement officials.

EUROPE

Burka Makes Women Prisoners, Says President Sarkozy - Charles Bremner, The Times. President Sarkozy threw his weight behind attempts to bar French Muslim women from covering their faces in public, calling their full-body dress a “debasement of women”. Mr Sarkozy made his attack on a small but growing number of fundamentalist women in a “state of the nation” speech that was the first by a French President to both houses of Parliament since 1873. Talking in the ornate chamber of the Château de Versailles, Mr Sarkozy also rejected calls to raise taxes and promised to accelerate his project to remake France, despite the deep recession. His strong words on the niqab and the burka were part of a confident personal performance review that was decried by the Opposition as a self-aggrandising stunt.

Far Eastern City Sees Kremlin as Cause of Its Troubles - Philip P. Pan, Washington Post. Last summer, the harbor in this city on Russia's Pacific coast was a symphony of commerce, with armies of dockworkers unloading ships as other vessels waited their turn in the glistening waters of Golden Horn Bay. Secondhand Japanese cars, the most common cargo, filled the piers and packed nearby garages, where dealers did a brisk business moving them on to points across the former Soviet Union. Now, six months into Russia's worst economic downturn in more than a decade, the cars are gone, many of the workers have lost their jobs, and the few ships left in the bay sit idle. But residents don't blame the global recession for the city's woes. They blame the Kremlin's efforts to fight the downturn.

MIDDLE EAST

Palestinian Premier Sets 2-Year Statehood Target - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday called for the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years, a timeline he said is possible if Israel upholds its existing commitments and Palestinians "roll up their sleeves" and concentrate on building government and civic institutions. In comments directed as much at the Islamist Hamas movement as at Israel, Fayyad said competing Palestinian factions need to take advantage of international support for the creation of a Palestinian state, something the Obama administration is pushing as a priority. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and has been responsible for thousands of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel in recent years. The group evicted forces aligned with the rival Fatah party from the area in 2007.

Palestinian Premier Seeks Stronger Institutions - Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Monday that Palestinians can make a stronger case for ending Israel's occupation by building up self-governing institutions that would strengthen global support for a Palestinian state. He set a goal of establishing an independent state within two years. "I call upon our people to unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthening its institutions ... so that the Palestinian state becomes, by the end of next year or within two years at most, a reality," he said in a speech to a university audience. Fayyad's remarks were billed as a response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech that accepted the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but demanded sharp limits to its sovereignty and territory. Yet much of Fayyad's address was directed at his own people - a self-critical approach rare for Palestinian leaders, who usually put the onus on Israel to make concessions to advance toward peace.

SOUTH ASIA

India Declares Maoists as Terrorists - Steve Herman, Voice of America. India's government has declared the country's Maoist movement a terrorist organization. The action came after paramilitary forces were dispatched to the state of West Bengal to reclaim a rural town seized by armed guerrillas. The move by India's central government, formally banning the Maoist faction of the Communist Party of India, allows for authorities to arrest any of its cadres or those deemed as sympathizers. Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, noting the Maoist group was formed by the merger in 2004 of a pair of outlawed organizations, said the amendment to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act removes any question about the legal status of the violent group which is active in the eastern part of the country. "It was always a terrorist organization. Today any ambiguity has been removed. It is a terrorist organization," he declared.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times book review of The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney.

Soldiers of Misfortune - James Glanz, New York Times book review of Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage by Donovan Campbell.

A Counterinsurgency Primer - Max Boot, Wall Street Journal book review of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.

Reluctant Warriors - The Economist book review of both The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas Ricks and The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.

BOOKS

The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars - David H. Ucko.

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality.

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.

In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.

Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.

The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz

The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney

The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.

Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett

In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen

A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.