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.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
German Deaths Push Afghan War to the Fore for Chancellor - Nicholas Kulish, New York Times. As Chancellor Angela Merkel prepared to depart for her meeting in Washington with President Obama, the deaths of three German soldiers in Afghanistan thrust Berlin’s role in the escalating conflict onto front pages nationwide and back to the forefront of political discourse here. Afghanistan is not likely to top the agenda when Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Obama meet at the White House on Friday. Advisers said Wednesday in Berlin that the talks would focus on the environment, the crisis in Iran and the global economy, among a host of other issues. But the Afghanistan mission, and disappointment in Washington over allies’ unwillingness to shoulder more of the burden, is central to the future of the NATO military alliance, the institution that more than any other binds Europe and the United States. And it is likely to dog Mrs. Merkel as she leads her Christian Democratic Union into parliamentary elections in September.
IRAQ
Premier Casting US Withdrawal as Iraq Victory - Steven Lee Meyers and Marc Santora, New York Times. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken to calling the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq’s cities by next Tuesday a “great victory,” a repulsion of foreign occupiers he compares to the rebellion against British troops in 1920. And the Americans are going along with it, symbolically and substantively. American commanders have hewed far more closely to the June 30 deadline for withdrawing combat forces from Iraq’s cities than expected only a few weeks ago, according to American and Iraqi officials. They have closed outposts - even in Baghdad and still-troubled Mosul in the north - that they had initially lobbied the Iraqis to keep open, having concluded, the officials said, that pressing the case would be counterproductive given the political significance that Mr. Maliki had given the deadline.
US Troops, Civilians to Become Less Protected on July 1 - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post. US military officials fear that the closure of inner-city bases and restrictive guidelines that go into effect next week will leave American troops and civilians in Iraq more vulnerable. Of particular concern is a new rule that bars US troops from using mine-resistant armored vehicles in urban areas during the day, officials said. Also worrisome, they said, is the recent closure of a small outpost in eastern Baghdad that is adjacent to a site militiamen have used to launch deadly rocket attacks on the Green Zone. Thousands of US combat troops will remain at a handful of bases in Baghdad and on the outskirts of other restive cities, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, past the June 30 deadline. But US troops say their ability to respond quickly to thwart attacks could erode significantly because Iraqi officials will have unprecedented authority over their mobility and missions in urban areas.
Wave of Bombings Continues in Iraq - Alissa J. Rubin and Campbell Robertson, New York Times. At least nine people were killed and 25 injured Friday when a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated explosives in a Baghdad market area, the Interior Ministry said. The bombing was the eighth in two days as American troops prepare to withdraw from Iraqi cities by Tuesday. The insurgents appear to be testing the Iraqi security forces’ ability to handle the situation without American backup. There were seven bombings on Thursday, making targets of both Shiites and Sunnis, civilians and Iraqi security forces, and American soldiers. There were at least five attacks in Baghdad. One, at a bus station, killed two people and wounded 30 in the late morning, security officials said, though witnesses at the scene said the toll was higher. Nine members of the allied forces were wounded when two roadside bombs exploded near their convoy in eastern Baghdad, an American military spokesman said. Iraqi police officers were killed or wounded by bombing attacks in Baghdad, Falluja and Mosul, officials said.
Motorcycle Bomb Kills at Least 13 in Baghdad - Associated Press. A motorcycle loaded with nails and ball-bearings exploded in a crowded bazaar in Baghdad Friday, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi officials said. The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks this week that have killed some 200 people ahead of next week's deadline for US troops to withdraw from urban areas in Iraq. The explosion occurred just after 9 a.m., when the market was packed with young people buying or selling motorcycles under the shadow of a Sunni mosque in central Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but insurgents frequently target crowded market districts to try to maximize casualties. The motorcycle bazaar is only open on Fridays. The market has been hit by several bombings in the past, but Iraqis have resumed flocking to the area due to security gains that have driven down the level of violence.
Security Gains Stall in Baghdad - Patrick Quinn, Associated Press. The bombing of a Baghdad bus station Thursday pushed the death toll from a weeklong series of blasts near Shi'ite targets to about 200, calling into question Iraq's ability to provide security as US combat troops slowly withdraw from cities. The wave of attacks is undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's declaration of a "great victory" in the US pullout from urban areas by Tuesday's deadline. He has declared June 30 a national holiday to be marked with celebrations. Mr. al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, has pinned his re-election hopes largely on security gains that have driven violence to wartime lows - an issue that's become his stump speech in an undeclared campaign for a second term. Seven months before national elections, he tells audiences that he's quashed major violence, dismembered al Qaeda and stamped out Shi'ite militias.
Warily Moving Ahead on Oil Contracts - Timothy Williams, New York Times. When Iraq puts development rights to some of its largest oil fields up for auction to foreign companies on Monday, the bidding will be a watershed moment, representing the first chance for petroleum giants like ExxonMobil to tap into the resources of a country they were kicked out of almost 40 years ago. Yet, there are widespread doubts about whether Iraq is ready for a sudden infusion of capital from international oil corporations. The country is still not safe. Parliament has not approved a law regulating the oil industry. And oil companies are wary of corruption within Iraq’s Oil Ministry. The oil companies are also somewhat disgruntled, being forced to compete for 20-year service contracts and not the more lucrative production sharing agreements they would prefer. Such agreements would allow them to share directly in the profits from oil production, rather than getting fixed fees. Still, all sides want to move ahead for one simple reason: money.
The Iraq Drawdown Is Proof of Success - Frank G. Helmick, Wall Street Journal opinion. A major transformation is underway in Iraq. Each day U.S. forces hand over more responsibility for security to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police. As this moves along, the number of US forces in Iraq will shrink to no more than 50,000 by August 2010 from approximately 132,000 now. Further, as directed by President Barack Obama, all US forces will be out of Iraq by the end of December 2011. As we proceed with this drawdown, the role of US forces in Iraq will transition to primarily focus on advising Iraqi forces instead of fighting terrorism directly. From 2003 to 2008, the presence of US forces in Iraq was authorized by the United Nations. Since then, US forces have remained at the invitation of the Iraqi government under the terms of a security agreement negotiated between our two countries. Among the provisions of this agreement is a requirement for US combat forces to be out of Iraq's cities by June 30, 2009. The term "combat forces" in the agreement is important. At the request of the government of Iraq, the requirement for combat forces to be out of Iraq's cities does not apply to US troops serving in other roles. There will still be some US forces located in Iraq's cities who are serving in an advisory or liaison capacity. Additionally, the Iraqi government reserves the right to request assistance from US combat forces if necessary.
IRAN
Options Shrink for Opposition as Iran Tightens Grip - Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman, New York Times. Step by step, Iran’s leaders are successfully pushing back threats to their authority, crushing street protests, pressing challengers to withdraw or to limit their objections to the disputed presidential election and restricting the main opposition leader’s ability to do much more than issue statements of outrage. Two weeks after Iran’s disputed presidential election, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the top challenger, issued an angry statement Thursday that underscored his commitment to press ahead - but also his impotence in the face of an increasingly emboldened and repressive government. Mr. Moussavi does not have a political organization to rally, and during the height of the unrest he attracted a large following more because of whom he opposed - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - than because of what he stood for, political analysts said.
Iran's Mousavi Vows to Continue Election Protests - Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal. Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi emerged Thursday from four days of silence, striking a defiant tone and making clear he is being pressured to cease contesting the results of the presidential election. Mr. Mousavi, a former prime minister, was one of three challengers to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed June 12 balloting that triggered sweeping demonstrations - and a crackdown - across Tehran. In a statement published on the Web site of his newspaper, Mr. Mousavi said that he wouldn't give in to "recent pressures" that he said were aimed at isolating him and "making me change my position regarding the annulment of the election." Security forces in recent days have arrested key members of Mr. Mousavi's campaign team as well as dozens of journalists working for his newspaper.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi Slams Iran's Leaders - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. After days of relative quiet, the candidate defeated in Iran's disputed presidential election launched a broadside Thursday against the nation's leadership, an indication that the country's political rift is far from over. In his statement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi issued a rare attack on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing him of not acting in the interests of the country, and said Iran had suffered a dramatic change for the worse. Mousavi's forceful remarks appeared to show that the former prime minister is willing to risk his standing as a pillar of the Islamic Republic to take on Iran's powerful leadership. And they seemed aimed at securing his position at the head of a broad movement seeking change. He also slammed state-controlled broadcasters, which have intensified a media blitz against him and his supporters with allegations that unrest over the June 12 election was instigated by Iran's international foes. And he pledged to pursue his quest to have President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection annulled.
Ahmadinejad Demands Apology From Obama - Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at President Obama on Thursday, warning him against "interfering" in Iranian affairs and demanding an apology for criticism of a government crackdown on demonstrators protesting alleged electoral fraud. Despite an increasingly harsh response to the protests, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi pledged to continue challenging official results that showed a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad in Iran's June 12 presidential election. He vowed to resist growing pressure to end his campaign and said he remains determined to prove that those who rigged the election are also responsible for the violence unleashed on opposition protesters. The two rivals issued their dueling statements - neither mentioning the other by name - a day after security forces broke up the latest demonstrations, then temporarily detained university professors who had met with Mousavi.
Iranians Pay Respects at Neda Agha-Soltan's Grave - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Security was tight around the bare grave of Neda Agha-Soltan on Thursday. Militiamen and police stood nearby, witnesses said, and it was difficult for visitors to hold a conversation within sight and hearing of the glaring officers. But the visitors come nonetheless to pay their respects to Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by an unknown assailant during the protests Saturday over Iran's disputed presidential election. Her dying moments were captured in a video that made its way onto the Internet and the international airwaves. "I read the news on the Web, and I saw the picture of the grave," said one man, hovering near the burial site. "I figured out the location of the grave and came. "We are here for Neda and our deceased relatives too," he said. "We are here to utter our respect for them." The man said that he too was in the street that day. "She was with us," he said. "Maybe one of us would have been killed that day. We are here to respect her, and all the martyrs they killed in the last days."
Israel Doubts Unrest Will Transform Iran - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. The storm of protests over the disputed election in Iran may have raised the prospect of a weakened regime, but it has done little to curb Israeli concerns about Iran's nuclear program or its support for militant groups in the region. Israeli officials and academics agree with the Obama administration that the extent of recent demonstrations could prompt significant change in the Islamic republic - and perhaps pave the way for a calmer Middle East. But they are not convinced that such change is inevitable: If the country's hard-line clerics reinforce their authority, it could quickly end President Obama's hope for dialogue and lead to even more Iranian support for such groups as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas among Palestinians, according to Israeli analysts and government officials. "I think the true nature of the Iranian regime has been unmasked," Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a recent interview with Germany's Bild magazine in which he emphasized that a government willing to shoot its own people could not be trusted.
Iranian Protesters Avoid Censorship with Navy Technology - Eli Lake, Washington Times. Iranians seeking to share videos and other eyewitness accounts of the demonstrations that have roiled their country since disputed elections two weeks ago are using an Internet encryption program originally developed by and for the US Navy. Designed a decade ago to secure Internet communications between US ships at sea, The Onion Router, or TOR, has become one of the most important proxies in Iran for gaining access to Web sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. The system of proxy servers that disguise a user's Internet traffic is now operated by a nonprofit, the Tor Project, that is independent from the US government and military and is used all over the world. According to the Tor Project, connections to TOR have gone up by 600 percent since mass protests erupted after the June 12 vote, which gave a purported landslide victory to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iran: Desperately Seeking Yeltsin - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post opinion. Iran today is a revolution in search of its Yeltsin. Without leadership, demonstrators will take to the street only so many times to face tear gas, batons and bullets. They need a leader like Boris Yeltsin: a former establishment figure with newly revolutionary credentials and legitimacy, who stands on a tank and gives the opposition direction by calling for the unthinkable - the abolition of the old political order. Right now the Iranian revolution has no leader. As this is written, opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has not appeared in public since June 18. And the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime has shown the requisite efficiency and ruthlessness at suppressing widespread unrest. Its brutality has been deployed intelligently. The key is to atomize the opposition. Start with the most sophisticated methods to block Internet and cellphone traffic, thanks to technology provided by Nokia Siemens Networks. Allow the more massive demonstrations to largely come and go - avoiding Tiananmen-style wholesale bloodshed - but disrupt the smaller ones with street-side violence and rooftop snipers, the perfect instrument of terror. Death instant and unseen, the kind that only the most reckless and courageous will brave.
The Mullahs Must Go - John Bolton, Los Angeles Times opinion. Since Iran's controversial and disputed election, President Obama has been noticeably restrained in his reaction. He has flashed his empathy, saying on Tuesday that he was "appalled and outraged" by the regime's brutality, but he has been equally emphatic about not being perceived as meddling in Iran's internal affairs. Despite increasing political heat, even from Democrats and the usually adulatory US media, Obama persists in his low-key approach, clinging to emotive generalizations. But it is the president's underlying policies that are wrong, not just his rhetoric. Saying that he does not want the "debate" inside Iran to be about the United States is disingenuous at best. Obama's real objective is to launch negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, in the belief that he can talk Iran out of its 20-year effort to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons. He said it during the 2008 campaign, during his inaugural address and repeatedly thereafter. Viewed in the light of this near-religious obsession with negotiation, Obama's reticence is entirely understandable: He does not want to jeopardize the chance to sit with the likes of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Not a Clue What to Do - R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., Washington Times opinion. The anti-government protests in Iran following the government's rigged elections are doubtless a little more than the "robust debate" among Iranians that PresidentObama welcomed during the election. Some of the debaters have been shot dead. Others have been hustled off to jail. I wonder if this is an eye-opener for our novice president. Conservatives have objected to his Laodicean calm in the first days of the bloodshed. He fastidiously refused to take sides. Only by the weekend did he come to his wits and call "on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." After that, the bloodshed got worse. On Tuesday he expressed "concerns," but by then the demonstrators had a martyr, 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, an apparently nonpolitical singer who was shot dead, presumably by government riot-control troops, although she was not actually in the protest. The video of her death has been circulating in media and on the Internet ever since.
US NATIONAL SECURITY
Hill Battle for the F-22 - Timothy Walton and Randal Drew, Washington Times opinion. Amid financial upheaval and a plethora of global crises, what issue kept members of Congress awake and debating until 2:30 a.m. last Thursday? It wasn't conflict in Pakistan, Iranian elections, or North Korean warmongering. It was an obscure $369 million clause in the defense budget that nevertheless holds enormous consequences for US national security. A $369 million price tag may not sound like much in today's political landscape, but this tidy sum is enough to keep production lines open for the cutting-edge and controversial F-22 Raptor. Debate has been vigorous, but the F-22 line enjoys bipartisan support and the availability of reasonable, unobligated funding options in fiscal 2010 and the possibility of production in fiscal 2011. Congress and the president must take further steps to make sure this program keeps flying.
US FOREIGN POLICY
Obama, the Neocons and Iran - Robert McFarlane, Wall Street Journal opinion. One casualty of the Iraq war has been the confusion among politicians about the proper place of democracy promotion in American foreign policy. Iran's recent election - which evoked a very vocal, frustrated opposition - brings into sharp focus the urgent need for clarity concerning this issue. Do we support those seeking freedom from oppression? And if so, how? It may do well to recall how we got into this confused state. Sixteen or so years ago a small circle of cold warriors, flush with victory, concluded that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union democracy and free enterprise had been vindicated. To these neoconservatives, the task of future American presidents would be to spread the gospel of democracy - using force if necessary - so that governments everywhere would become accountable to their people and thus less likely to wage war. In 2003, it was arguably democracy promotion, rather than the threat of weapons of mass destruction, which triggered the US invasion of Iraq. Throughout his two terms in office, President George W. Bush was an indefatigable advocate of democracy, even when it resulted in the victories of such un-Jeffersonian parties as Hezbollah and Hamas. Thus began the neocon versus realist battle. The current situation in Iran offers an opportunity to turn this debate in a less doctrinaire, more coherent direction.
The Prescience of Protest - Natan Sharansky, Los Angeles Times opinion. Once again, the world is amazed. As with the seemingly sudden appearance of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, or the gaudy, grand-scale collapse of the Soviet empire at the end of that decade, the massive revolt of Iranian citizens has elicited the unmitigated surprise of the free world's army of experts, pundits and commentators. Who would have known? Who could have predicted this eruption of protest in a system so highly repressed, where a generally quiescent populace lives under such a deeply entrenched revolutionary regime? And yet, just as in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, there were those in Iran who did know all along, who foresaw and even foretold today's events. These were Iran's democratic dissidents, some at home, some in exile, some having served long sentences in Iranian prisons or on their way to those prisons right now. At various Western conferences and forums in recent years, some of these dissidents even succeeded in gaining the ear of leaders of the free world. They were greeted with sincere expressions of sympathy and support - but also with silent skepticism. Surely their assessments of the Iranian situation were unreliable at best. Heroic they undoubtedly were, but objective? After all, they lacked access to classified information, to satellite photography and the other tools of modern intelligence-gathering. They could not see the whole picture.
AFRICA
US Giving Weapons Aid to Somalia Government - Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. The Obama administration has begun sending arms aid to the beleaguered government of Somalia, officials said Thursday, in an escalation of its commitment to one of the world's most troubled states. State Department officials said the support was intended to help sustain a transitional government that is steadily losing ground to Islamic militants in fighting that has been catastrophic for civilians. The administration also is stepping up humanitarian aid to the country, said officials, who declined to disclose how much would be spent. "We are concerned," said Ian Kelly, the State Department spokesman, referring to the Somali government's stability. The money will help "repel the onslaught of extremist forces which are intent on ... spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia," Kelly said. The move is a signal that the administration wants to broaden its commitment to sub-Saharan Africa, going beyond the counter-terrorism programs that were the Bush administration's primary focus, officials said.
Islamists Amputate Limbs of 4 Somalis Accused of Theft - New York Times. Islamic insurgents trying to overthrow the government of Somalia cut off the right hands and left legs of four young men accused of theft on Thursday, bringing their strict brand of justice to the capital for the first time, witnesses said. Somalia has been reeling from a pitched battle between the transitional government and the insurgents, particularly in the capital, Mogadishu, where hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in recent weeks alone. Responding to what he called an urgent request by Somali officials, the State Department spokesman, Ian Kelley, said Thursday that the United States had provided Somalia’s government with weapons and ammunition “to repel the onslaught of extremist forces” that were “spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability” to the nation. The Shabab, one of the principal Islamic groups fighting to topple the government, was behind the punishment. It has imposed harsh sentences in other parts of the country that it controls and, at least once, stoned to death a teenage girl who said she had been raped, an act that drew international condemnation.
Al Qaeda Says It Killed American in Mauritania - Associated Press. Al-Qaida's North African branch has claimed responsibility for the killing of an American aid worker shot dead this week in Mauritania's capital, Al-Jazeera TV reported Thursday. The Arab satellite TV station aired an audio statement purportedly issued by al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb spokesman Salah Abu Mohammed, who said the group killed 39-year-old Christopher Ervin Leggett on Tuesday because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. ''Two knights of the Islamic Maghreb succeeded Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. to kill the infidel American Christopher Leggett for his Christianizing activities,'' the statement said. The statement's authenticity could not be independently verified.
AMERICAS
US, Venezuela to Restore Full Diplomatic Ties - Chris Kraul and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. In a potentially significant step toward repairing their tattered relationship, the United States and Venezuela have formally agreed to resume full diplomatic relations, the State Department announced Thursday. Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the two nations exchanged notes that in effect formalized pledges that President Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made at the Summit of the Americas in April to reinstall ambassadors who were expelled in September. US Ambassador Patrick Duddy and his Venezuelan counterpart, Bernardo Alvarez, soon will resume their former posts in Caracas and Washington, respectively, Kelly said. Each country's embassy had remained open and formal relations were never fully cut. Kelly said the move would "help advance US interests" by improving communication with the Venezuelan government and citizens.
Honduras Lurches Toward Crisis Over Election - Jose de Cordoba, Wall Street Journal. Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's push to rewrite the constitution, and pave the way for his potential re-election, has plunged one of Latin America's poorest countries into a potentially violent political crisis. A day after Mr. Zelaya fired the head of the country's armed forces, hundreds of troops on Thursday deployed around the Congress, presidential palace and airport in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. It wasn't clear whether the troops were responding to orders from Mr. Zelaya, or Honduras' other civilian and military powers, all of which oppose the president. Mr. Zelaya, a populist and close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's retired dictator Fidel Castro, wants to hold a referendum on Sunday aimed at allowing voters in the country's November presidential election to also vote on rewriting the constitution. Mr. Zelaya says the current constitution favors the country's elites.
Honduras Leader Won't Restore Military Chief - Associated Press. The Honduran president said Thursday that he would ignore a high court ruling ordering him to reinstate the military chief he had fired, escalating a showdown that has threatened the leftist leader's hold on power. President Manuel Zelaya's plan to hold a referendum Sunday on changing the constitution has pitted him against the country's top courts, the attorney general, military leaders and even his own party, all of whom say the vote is illegal. Zelaya has won the support of labor leaders, farmers and civic organizations who hope constitutional changes will give them a greater voice in a conservative country where 70% of the population is poor.
ASIA PACIFIC
Beijing Adds Curbs on Access to Internet - Keith Bradsher, New York Times. The Chinese Health Ministry on Thursday ordered sharp restrictions on Internet access to medical research papers on sexual subjects. It is the latest move in what the ministry calls an antipornography campaign that many China experts see as a harbinger of a broader crackdown on freedom of expression and dissent. In the past month, central government officials have cited a need to control pornography in ordering that filtering software be preinstalled on all new computers sold in China starting July 1. They have also forced Google to disable a function that lets the search engine suggest terms and on Wednesday night even briefly blocked access nationwide to Google’s main search engine and other services like Gmail. Some users were still having problems accessing Google sites on Thursday night.
EUROPE
Retrial Ordered in Killing of a Russian Journalist - Michael Schwirtz, New York Times. Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the acquittals of four men accused of involvement in the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and ordered a new trial. The court said the four men, who were charged with assisting the killer of Ms. Politkovskaya, should be tried again on the same charges in the same military court in Moscow. In ordering the retrial, the court sided with the prosecution, which argued that there had been procedural violations by the judges and the defense during the first trial, said a court spokesman, Pavel Odintsov. Other critics, however, including President Dmitri A. Medvedev, cited the prosecution’s errors and unfamiliarity with the jury system, which is relatively new in Russia, in the acquittals. The 2006 killing of Ms. Politkovskaya, a vocal Kremlin critic, underscored the dangers facing journalists and human rights activists in Russia.
MIDDLE EAST
Arab Activists Watch Iran And Wonder: 'Why Not Us?' - Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post. Mohamed Sharkawy bears the scars of his devotion to Egypt's democracy movement. He has endured beatings in a Cairo police station, he said, and last year spent more than two weeks in an insect-ridden jail for organizing a protest. But watching tens of thousands of Iranians take to the streets of Tehran this month, the 27-year-old pro-democracy activist has grown disillusioned. In 10 days, he said, the Iranians have achieved far more than his movement has ever accomplished in Egypt. "We sacrificed a lot, but we have gotten nowhere," Sharkawy said. Across the Arab world, Iran's massive opposition protests have triggered a wave of soul-searching and conflicting emotions. Many question why their own reform movements are unable to rally people to rise up against unpopular authoritarian regimes.
Iran's Turmoil Opens Rift Among Shiites Across Mideast - Yaroslav Trofimov and Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal. Unrest in Iran has opened a theological rift within the Shiite sect of Islam, undermining the Iranian regime's founding dogma that is shared by millions of fellow Shiites across the Middle East. The concept, known as wilayat al-faqih - literally "guardianship by a jurist" - holds that, in an Islamic state, a divinely anointed scholar of Islamic law must exercise unquestioned authority over elected officials and the rest of the government. Iran's current such incumbent, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, isn't just the top arbiter of the country's affairs. He also serves as the marjaa, or spiritual guide, for many Shiites outside Iran. Mr. Khamenei's image graces billboards in south Beirut, mosques in Shiite shantytowns of eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and the walls of Shiite lawmakers' offices in Kuwait.
Israelis Cede More Control of West Bank Security - Isabel Kershner, New York Times. Israel has agreed to give the Palestinian security forces more freedom of action in four West Bank cities, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said Thursday, a move that implies a reduction in Israeli military activity in those areas as the Western-backed Palestinian forces assert more control. The Israeli military also recently removed several significant checkpoints inside the West Bank, in line with a policy of easing movement and improving daily life for the Palestinians so long as calm prevails. A Palestinian can now drive from Jenin in the northern West Bank to Hebron in the south without being stopped and checked at any permanent roadblock along the way, the military says. Israel has been under pressure from the Obama administration to halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and, together with the Palestinian leadership based there, to provide the basis for resuming stalled peace talks, but an Israeli Defense Ministry official denied the latest developments on the ground were directly linked.
For Palestinian Forces, a Growing Role in West Bank - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. It began with the smell of smoke at the Ayyoub al-Ansari mosque and a routine call to the local fire department, but over the next six weeks, it developed into a full-fledged counterterrorism operation. Palestinian security officials, who joined firefighters at the scene, noticed an oddly placed stairwell and found that it led to an underground room stocked with chemicals, guns and a ready-to-go explosives vest. Follow-up arrests and investigation helped uncover a militant safe house and led to a climactic gun battle in late May in which two men from the Islamist Hamas movement - who had long eluded Israeli capture - died in a hail of Palestinian fire, according to Palestinian, US and Israeli officials. Three police officers and another resident of the house were also killed. The fight last month in this northern West Bank town has emerged as a potential turning point in cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security officials, a relationship central to the future emergence of a Palestinian state. Palestinian police and security forces have assumed increasing control over towns in the occupied West Bank, a process that took a significant step forward Thursday when Israel agreed to limit military incursions in four major Palestinian cities.
Israel Cuts West Bank Control - Associated Press. Bowing to pressure from Washington, Israel granted US-trained Palestinian security forces greater autonomy in four main West Bank towns, Israeli and Palestinian defense officials said Thursday. The ability of Palestinian security forces to maintain law and order is key to Mideast peacemaking because Israel needs to be convinced that a future Palestinian state won’t threaten its security. Israel already has turned over limited security control to Palestinians in three other West Bank towns, but the military said that forces in Qalqiliya, Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah would be the first to operate around the clock without Israeli clearance. In a statement, the Israeli military said Palestinian security forces “will be able to extend their hours of operation” in the towns but emphasized that Israeli forces would continue to operate in the West Bank “in order to thwart terrorist operations.”
No Choice but Democracy - Michael Gerson, Washington Post opinion. In early 2005, the advance of freedom in the Middle East had an air of inevitability. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Beirut to demand an end to Syrian occupation. Eight and a half million Iraqis voted with purpled fingers. Even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak permitted a multiparty election. People talked of an "Arab spring." By 2006, what had seemed inevitable was dismissed as incredible. Iraq had descended into civil strife, apparently aided by elections that reinforced sectarian divides. Voting in the Palestinian territories brought Hamas to power. Mubarak, the old angler, reeled back most of the freedoms he had granted. Some American conservatives found Burkean lessons in the fading freedom agenda, asserting that democracy is a fragile flower that grows only in a rich cultural soil tended by Jeffersons and Hamiltons. Many liberals seemed relieved that President Bush didn't seem right after all, though this involved global setbacks for political liberalism. It may seem strange that anyone should feel a thrill of vindication when the ideals of their nation appear to falter. But let us judge not, that we be not judged.
Want to Stop Israeli Settlements? Start With American Jews - Ronit Avni, Washington Post opinion. This month, both at Cairo University and from the Oval Office, President Obama has called on the Israeli government to stop the expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. He should send the same message to the Americans who are funding and fueling them. There are more than 450,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Peace Now, an Israeli organization that opposes the settlements. Some of them are Americans. And some of the most influential, militant figures in the settler movement have been Americans, too. Among them were Baruch Goldstein, the doctor from Brooklyn who fired 100 shots at worshiping Muslims in Hebron in 1994, killing 29; Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Kach party, which was banned in Israel in 1988 on the grounds that it was racist; and convicted terrorist Era Rapaport, a member of the Land Redemption Fund, which coordinates the acquisition of Palestinian land in areas targeted for settlement expansion.
SOUTH ASIA
India Undertakes Ambitious ID Card Plan - Vikas Bajaj, New York Times. One of India’s most successful technology entrepreneurs was tapped by the government on Thursday to lead an ambitious project to give every citizen an identification card within three years. The entrepreneur, Nandan M. Nilekani, a founder and former chief executive of Infosys Technologies, will leave his post as a co-chairman of the board to take on the ID card project. In his new job, he will have the rank of a cabinet minister, giving him significant autonomy within the government. Mr. Nilekani’s appointment is a coup for the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which has made a series of big promises about economic development and reform since it was re-elected in May to a second five-year term. While many Indian executives serve on public advisory boards and committees, few have joined the government and headed such big public projects.
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.
