Lebanon's pro-western coalition has been pronounced the winner of Sunday's parliamentary election, following a tough race against the pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies. Lebanon's Interior Minister Ziad Baroud announced the results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, district by district, proclaiming the pro-Western March 14 coalition the winner with 71 seats in the 128-member parliament. The pro-Syrian Hezbollah, which many analysts predicted would secure a majority in the parliament, came away with 57 seats.

--Voice of America

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

Iranian Weapons Getting Through to Taliban - Ben Farmer, Daily Telegraph. Border police say they are regularly intercepting consignments of anti-tank mines and mortars bound for Afghan militants fighting Nato-led forces. One shipment seized on May 23 along Afghanistan's 580-mile western border contained dozens of anti-tank mines. "That's a regular occurrence," the official told the Daily Telegraph. "It tends to be heavier weapons like mines and mortars rather than Kalashnikovs". Quantities regularly run into the hundreds and the weapons are usually brand new he added. Mr Obama has been working hard to enlist Iranian support in tackling rampant arms and opium traffic across the border. Sources said both sides were prepared for a "fresh look" at co-operation after years of hostility caused by Tehran's nuclear programme, American support for Israel, and Iranian suspicion of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pakistani Tribesmen Rise Up Against Taliban - Catherine Maddux, Voice of America. Top Pakistani and US officials have repeatedly declared there is a major change in the public mood against Taliban militants in Pakistan. In what could be the latest evidence of that sentiment, hundreds of armed Pakistani tribesman are attacking Taliban positions in a remote area in the northwest following a suicide attack last week on a packed mosque that killed dozens of people, including children. In Pakistan's remote district of Upper Dir near the border with Afghanistan, the shock of the attack on the mosque during Friday prayers turned to anger a day later. That is when at least 400 armed tribesmen formed a civilian army, commonly called a "lashkar," and started attacking Taliban militants in several villages. Reports say anywhere from seven to 13 Taliban militants were killed and several of their hideouts destroyed. The civilian uprising in Upper Dir appears to be the latest evidence of growing anti-Taliban sentiment among the public, according to Fazal-ur-Rehman, Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

60 Taliban Killed in Afghanistan as US Deploys More Troops - Ayaz Gul, Voice of America. Authorities in southern Afghanistan said local and foreign troops have killed as many as 60 Taliban militants in the past week, as part of a stepped up anti-insurgency operation. And about 7,000 additional US troops have begun deploying across volatile southern Afghanistan. Top Afghan security officials said the past week has seen intense fighting in the southern province of Zabul where local and coalition forces have jointly killed dozens of Taliban militants, including some of their key commanders. Provincial Police Chief General Abdul Rehman Sarjang told VOA that security forces targeted militant hideouts in all the province's districts, and fighting in some areas is still underway. General Sarjang said Afghan and coalition forces are determined to continue attacking "enemy networks" until they are eliminated from the region. He said the fighting has left two local soldiers dead, while two others are wounded. The police chief said the bodies of all the militants killed in the fighting were handed over to tribal elders and religious scholars for burial, denying Taliban allegations those killed were civilians.

7,000 US Marines Patrolling Southern Afghan Desert - Chris Brummitt, Associated Press. Some 7,000 of the new US troops ordered to Afghanistan are fanning out across the dangerous south this week on a mission to defeat the Taliban insurgency and to change the course of a war claiming American lives at a record pace. The Marines represent the first wave of 21,000 troops ordered to Afghanistan this summer by President Barack Obama. Most of the Marine buildup will occur in Helmand, the world's largest opium poppy-growing region and Afghanistan's most violent province. Helmand borders Pakistan, where the Taliban's top leadership is believed to be based. Some 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are now in the country, Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Abe Sipe said. The forces have brought fighter aircraft, transport helicopters, artillery and the infrastructure needed to support what will ultimately be a force of around 11,000.

Report Points to Irregularities in Farah Air Strike Incident - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. The investigation into a May 4 close-air support incident in Afghanistan’s Farah province that caused civilian casualties has pointed to some deviations from established tactics, techniques and procedures, but those involved showed extraordinary care in the incident, the Pentagon’s press secretary said today. Geoff Morrell said Army Brig. Gen. Raymond Thomas conducted the review and briefed Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on the recommendations of his report. Thomas conducted the investigation on orders from US Central Command chief Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. The full report will be released later this week. “It appeared to me … that the personnel involved took extraordinary care in tracking the militants that they had come under attack from,” said Morrell, who attended Thomas’s briefing. An Afghan unit had come in contact with Taliban militants and asked for back-up from US Marines. “That unit came in, and over the next several hours beat back this attack, killing several dozen Taliban in the process, and required some close air support to ultimately prevail,” Morrell said. The investigation found some problems with the way in which close-air support was used. A B-1 bomber, because of the way the aircraft makes its approach, had to break away from positive identification of its targets, Morrell said.

Pentagon Reports Mistakes by Bomber Crew in Afghan Incident - Al Pessin, Voice of America. The US Defense Department says one of the aircraft involved in bombing an Afghan village a month ago, during an operation that caused numerous civilian casualties, violated rules designed to protect civilians. But a spokesman says there is no indication that the violation caused the casualties. Procedures for protecting civilians will be part of a 60-day review that the new US commanders heading for Afghanistan have been ordered to conduct. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell says he sat in on a briefing for Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday, during which the US brigadier general assigned to investigate the civilian casualties incident summarized his report. "There were some problems with some tactics, techniques and procedures, the way in which close air support was supposed to have been executed in this case, such that, at least with one of the aircraft involved, a B-1 bomber, that plane because of how it takes its bombing routes had to break away from positive ID [identification] of their target at one point to make its elongated approach," said Geoff Morrell. "That is sort of the fundamental complaint that was rendered, I believe, by this investigation." The B-1 is a strategic bomber that was not originally designed to provide direct air support to ground forces, which was the mission in this instance. Still, Morrell says while the investigation faults the bomber's crew for violating procedures, there is no proof that resulted in civilian casualties.

US Reports Errors In Afghan Airstrikes - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon said US forces involved in airstrikes that killed dozens of civilians in Afghanistan last month had failed to follow guidelines for preventing civilian casualties. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the military's internal investigation into the American assault on the village of Granai identified several problems, most notably that a B-1 bomber lost sight of one of its targets on the ground before dropping its bombs. He said it wasn't clear whether the B-1 crew's loss of positive identification of its target resulted in civilian deaths, but that military investigators "did note that as one of the problems associated with how this all took place." Washington and Kabul have feuded publicly for weeks over the airstrikes, with Afghan officials alleging that US forces killed 140 civilians. US officials have consistently put the number of civilian casualties at around 30, with at least 60 Taliban militants killed. "There were some problems with some tactics, techniques and procedures, the way in which close air support was supposed to have been executed in this case," Mr. Morrell told reporters on Monday.

US Troops Erred in Fight With Taliban That Killed Dozens of Civilians - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. US military personnel on the ground in western Afghanistan and in the air failed to follow established procedures in a battle with the Taliban early last month that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, Pentagon and other Obama administration officials said yesterday. During the battle, a Marine "quick-reaction" force came to the aid of an Afghan army unit attacking Taliban forces. Among the rules violated or poorly followed were poor initial planning for combat in a populated area and the dropping of a 2,000-pound bomb from a B-1 bomber on a building without proper visual and ground confirmation of the target, officials said. Afghan government officials and human rights organizations have variously estimated that between 97 and 140 civilians were killed in the battle, in Farah province. Results of a major military investigation, presented yesterday to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, are to be released in summary form later this week, one Pentagon official said.

IRAQ

US Frees Suspect in Killing of 5 GI’s - Alissa J. Rubin and Michael R. Gordon, New York Times. The American military has released a senior Shiite insurgent said to be backed by Iran who was accused of playing a leading role in a group that killed five American soldiers in Karbala in a sophisticated attack in 2007, according to senior American and Shiite officials. The release of the insurgent, Laith al-Khazali, a member of the militant Shiite group Asa’ib al-Haq, is part of a complex negotiation aimed at fostering political reconciliation in Iraq. It also appears to involve the release of British hostages who are being held by the organization. “As part of a reconciliation effort between the government of Iraq and Asa’ib al-Haq, the decision has been made to release Layth Khazali,” said Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a spokesman for the American military commander here, in an e-mailed response to questions from The New York Times.

IRAN

Iranians Voice Discontent in Massive Street Rally - Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal. Tens of thousands of demonstrators formed a 12-mile human chain across Iran's capital city Monday, chanting for change, in scenes reminiscent of the 1979 revolution. The crowd had come out in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a reformist former prime minister who is seen as the strongest rival to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's presidential election. Men and women of all ages wearing green - the Mousavi campaign's signature color - and waving posters and green flags filled the length of Vali Asr Street. The north-south avenue is the longest in Iran and served as the stage for the revolution. Traffic was brought to a standstill for over five hours as the crowd steadily swelled in size. Mr. Mousavi's campaign had called on supporters to line streets in 140 cities around the country. But the spontaneous swelling of the crowd, as shopkeepers, residents, workers and passersby joined in, was unexpected.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mocked for UN 'Halo' - Philippe Naughton, The Times. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being mocked in the run-up to this week's Iranian presidential elections for a videoclip in which he boasts of how world leaders watched him for almost half an hour without blinking as he spoke in a halo of light to the United Nations. The speech in question was in September 2005 when the Iranian President used his first address to the UN General Assembly in New York to indulge in a bit of his favourite sport, bashing America. Afterwards, according to a videoclip that has gone viral in the e-mail inboxes of Tehran, he told a top cleric, Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, that a "light" had enveloped him and that the crowd stared at him unblinkingly during the entire speech. The clip first surfaced in November 2005, prompting analysts to wonder whether Mr Ahmadinejad was really claiming divine inspiration and support or whether he was trying to cement his appeal to lower-class voters more likely to believe in supernatural phenomena.

Huge Campaign Rallies Snarl Tehran - Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi, New York Times. A pair of sprawling demonstrations here brought the capital of Iran virtually to a standstill on Monday, with followers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main electoral challenger struggling to demonstrate their street following ahead of presidential elections on Friday. The demonstrations were the largest gatherings here in more than a decade, veteran political observers said. Iranian elections always bring a loosening of the rules on public speech and behavior, but many say this year’s election is different, in part because of the social crackdown of the past four years under Mr. Ahmadinejad. “What’s happening now is more than what should happen before an election,” said Mashalah Shamsolvaezin, a political commentator and former director of several reformist newspapers. “This is an expression of protest and dissatisfaction by people. They are venting their frustration and feeling very powerful.”

In Iran Election, Tradition Competes With Web - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Supporters of both leading candidates in this week's Iranian presidential election flocked to mass rallies here Monday, and the gatherings underscored the differences between the tactics of the two camps. More than 100,000 backers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gathered in traditional fashion at a central mosque, arriving in buses organized by members of the baseej, Iran's voluntary paramilitary force. The crowds were so dense that Ahmadinejad's vehicle was unable to reach the stage. Wearing a headband in the colors of the Iranian flag, the symbol of Ahmadinejad's campaign, Leili Aghahi, 17, waved at the president. Ahmadinejad stood for a while on the roof of his sport-utility vehicle, immobilized by the adoring crowd, then left without giving a speech.

A Vital Election in Iran - Daily Telegraph editorial. No sitting president anywhere in the world more richly deserves to lose an election than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. In the past four years, he has disgraced his country by dismissing the Holocaust as a "myth" and promising to wipe Israel "from the pages of history". A windfall from surging oil prices has been squandered and, with the boom over, Iran is sinking even further into stagnation and mass unemployment. Yet Mr Ahmadinejad is seeking another term in the election on Friday, although he faces a strong challenge from two reformers, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, and from another hardliner, Mohsen Rezai. In a country of riddles, this election is a mysterious affair. The outcome is unpredictable and Mr Ahmadinejad's defeat remains possible. There has been open and acrimonious debate between the candidates - a reminder that Iran is not a dictatorship and has some trappings of democracy, including a degree of freedom of expression. Ultimate power, however, rests not with the elected president but the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This unelected and unaccountable cleric, who never travels and rarely meets a non-Muslim visitor, holds Iran's fate in his hands.

LEBANON

Official Results Show Lebanon's Pro-Western Coalition Wins Vote - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Lebanon's pro-western coalition has been pronounced the winner of Sunday's parliamentary election, following a tough race against the pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies. Lebanon's Interior Minister Ziad Baroud announced the results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, district by district, proclaiming the pro-Western March 14 coalition the winner with 71 seats in the 128-member parliament. The pro-Syrian Hezbollah, which many analysts predicted would secure a majority in the parliament, came away with 57 seats. Supporters of the Western-backed coalition set off fireworks and honked their car horns as it became clear they were the winners. Hezbollah Member of Parliament Mohammed Raad reacted to the loss by saying it meant the political crisis that has gripped the country would be prolonged. Former prime minister Najib Miqati, whose name had been mentioned by some analysts to form the next government if Hezbollah had won, said he is optimistic that a formula would be found to govern the country.

US Welcomes 'March 14' Coalition Victory in Lebanon - David Gollust, Voice of America. Both the White House and State Department congratulated the Lebanese people for carrying out a peaceful election. A senior official who spoke here on terms of anonymity went further, welcoming what he said was an "unambiguous" victory by the March 14 movement and expressing hope that Hezbollah will accept the results and operate within the political system. Despite pre-election forecasts that the Hezbollah-led opposition might gain seats, the pro-Western March 14 coalition won 71 of the 128 seats in parliament - picking up one seat - while the Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition alliance led by Hezbollah won 57. In a written statement, President Barack Obama said the Lebanese people had once more demonstrated to the world their courage and the strength of their commitment to democracy.

In Lebanese Vote, Hopeful Signs for US - Michael Slackman, New York Times. There were many domestic reasons voters handed an American-backed coalition a victory in Lebanese parliamentary elections on Sunday - but political analysts also attribute it in part to President Obama’s campaign of outreach to the Arab and Muslim world. Most analysts had predicted that the Hezbollah-led coalition, already a crucial power broker in the Lebanese government because of its support from Shiites who make up a large part of Lebanon’s population, would win handily. In the end, though, the American-aligned coalition won 71 seats, while the Syria-Iranian aligned opposition, which includes Hezbollah, took only 57. It is hard to draw firm conclusions from one election. But for the first time in a long time, being aligned with the United States did not lead to defeat in the Middle East.

Lebanon Begins Test of Forming New Government - Chip Cummins and Nada Raad, Wall Street Journal. A Western-backed coalition here now must form a new government after widening its majority in parliamentary elections, a task almost as fraught as the election itself. The "March 14" movement won 71 seats in Lebanon's 128-seat body, increasing its parliamentary hold by one. The Hezbollah-led opposition came away with 57 seats, according to official results released by the interior ministry Monday afternoon. Hezbollah itself lost a seat in redistricting, as expected. But many pollsters and observers had predicted the redistricting, which took place after the last polling in 2005, would translate into gains and possibly an outright majority for Hezbollah's allies in the opposition coalition. In Washington and across the Middle East, the vote was seen as a proxy battle between the influence of the West and its Arab allies on one side, and Hezbollah supporters Iran and Syria on the other.

Lebanese Victor's Toughest Dilemma - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. In four tumultuous years, Saad Hariri, the billionaire at the center of Lebanese politics, has weathered his father's assassination, a war with Israel and a near civil collapse when the Shiite Hezbollah party seized the country's capital by force. But in rebounding with an unexpected win in Sunday's parliamentary election, the 39-year-old politician faces one of his most difficult dilemmas yet, according to allies and local political analysts. If, as expected, he becomes the nation's next prime minister, he will be left to reconcile the anti-Hezbollah rhetoric of his campaign with the Islamist group's continued power to make demands and set its own course in confronting Israel. The choice, local analysts say, is between a showdown with his supporters, a showdown with Hezbollah or - the more likely outcome - a continued stalemate over the very issues voters hoped they were addressing in Sunday's balloting.

More Political Strife in Lebanon Expected after Victory of US-backed Coalition - Meris Lutz and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. A US-backed coalition's election victory over an alliance led by the militant Hezbollah movement sets the stage for a new period of political discord in Lebanon, analysts and officials said Monday. One point of contention, they noted, will be the arsenal of weapons held by the Shiite Muslim militiamen of Hezbollah. Election officials Monday confirmed a decisive parliamentary election victory of the so-called March 14 coalition, led by pro-US lawmaker and billionaire Saad Hariri, over a Shiite-Christian alliance called March 8. Hariri's coalition, which includes Sunni, Christian and Druze parties, won 71 of the parliament's 128 seats. The March 8 alliance won 57, according to official numbers cited by the government news agency. Hezbollah and its closestallies had characterized the vote as a referendum on their armed resistance to Israel. The March 14 coalition campaigned on a platform of disarming Hezbollah.

A Ballot in Beirut - The Times editorial. The decisive electoral victory for the ruling pro-Western coalition in Lebanon on Sunday has taken almost everyone by surprise. All the forecasts pointed to a narrow win for the Opposition, led by Hezbollah, and a subsequent tilt of this crucial cockpit of Arab politics towards Syria and Iran. But the late surge of support for FouadSiniora, the resilient Prime Minister who has survived brutal political pressure, including the assassination of several Cabinet members, points to three heart-warming developments. First, the influence of Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons is, for now, declining. Second, voters refused to be intimidated and turned out in force to underpin this rare example of a functioning democracy in the Middle East. And third, President Obama's statesmanlike address to the Muslim world last week may be finding a clear response. The election was one of the most crucial in Lebanon's turbulent history.

A Fragile Democracy - The Australian editorial. Nobody underestimates the potential threats posed to Saad Hariri's new government or to peace in Lebanon by Hezbollah guerillas re-arming, with or without the support of Syria and Iran. But as a victorious Mr Hariri, 39, a Sunni Muslim, said after his weekend victory: "The Lebanese have proved today their commitment to freedom and democracy." Voters appear to have been attracted by the prospect of a relatively normal life under Mr Hariri's "March 14 bloc", named after the date of a huge rally in 2005 against Syria's military presence in Lebanon. Mr Hariri, the son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005, enjoys the backing of the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Mr Hariri won 70 seats in the 128-member assembly, as against 58 for the opposition, a peculiar Iranian-backed alliance headed by Hezbollah, regarded as a terrorist organisation by the US and Australia. The opposition alliance also included Shi'ite and Christian allies, the latter seeming ill-suited to belong to such a grouping. The peaceful conduct of the election was encouraging. And as Israeli cabinet minister Yisrael Katz acknowledged yesterday, the victory of pro-Western forces "signals important tidings for the region and Israel". But as Lebanese citizens hold their breath and hope their fragile country can avoid renewed instability and sectarian violence, it is time to paraphrase Ronald Reagan's famous comment about the once-Soviet dominated Poland and "let Lebanon be Lebanon".

Lebanon's Voters Answer Iran's Guns - Christian Science Monitor editorial. As the crossroads for the Middle East, Lebanon has just posted a new road sign for the region: Elections do matter. This tiny country's vote on Sunday for a new parliament all but repudiated Iran's heavy hand in trying to turn Lebanon's Shiite militia, Hezbollah, into a lance against Israel, the US, and the West. The outcome gives a pro-West coalition called March 14 a stronger hand to rule, but it also sends a signal to voters in Iran. They go to the polls Friday to elect a president, and the ruling clerics and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be worried that popular will could also could turn against them. Pro-West voters in Lebanon saw in May 2008 how Iran-backed Hezbollah used its military dominance to take over Beirut in order for its coalition (known as March 8) to gain veto rights over the government. And they also saw how a popular prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in 2005, allegedly by anti-West killers. Now, perhaps, with this election – which had an unusually large voter turnout – Hezbollah has clearly been told that democracy forces do not want to be coerced by guns (or Iran's vote-buying money). Perhaps other democracy supporters in the Middle East will take heart from Lebanon's example.

Isolating Islamists - Amir Taheri, New York Post opinion. Less than three days after President Obama tried to woo Islamist forces with a major speech in Cairo, secular democratic forces in the Middle East won a dramatic victory in a crucial election in Lebanon. Two rival blocs faced off - one pro-Iranian, one pro-Western. The March 8 Coalition is led by Hezbollah (The Party of God), a semi-clandestine Shiite outfit with a private army financed and controlled by Iran. Also in the bloc: the Amal (Hope) Movement, a pro-Syrian Shiite group; a Maronite Christian group led by ex-Gen. Michel Aoun (a populist megalomaniac who was Tehran's handpicked but unsuccessful candidate for the Lebanese presidency last year), and the Armenian Dashnak Party, a Fascist group with historic ties to German Nazis and Italian fascists of the 1930s and 1940s.

NORTH KOREA

Pyongyang Convicts Reporters - Evan Ramstad and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal. The US said Monday it will try "all possible channels" to seek the release of two American journalists, who North Korea sentenced Monday to 12 years of prison after convicting them of illegally entering the country. But Pyongyang's recent unwillingness to talk is sowing fears that the situation may not be resolved quickly. The ruling against Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for Current TV LLC, of San Francisco, raises the prospect that they will be the first Americans subjected to North Korea's gulag-style prisons. The closed trial, which began Thursday, took place in the country's highest court, with no opportunity for appeal. The court followed sentencing guidelines for "serious" crimes, based on a review of North Korean criminal statutes available in Seoul. North Korea's state media said the reporters were convicted of a "grave" crime but didn't elaborate. Many current and former US officials said Washington's standoff today with North Korea is among the most dangerous since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The lack of a coherent communication line between the two countries' leaderships raises the potential for a miscalculation or escalation. And the breakdown of the diplomacy forged over the past eight years between Washington and Pyongyang has raised skepticism both in Asia and the US of the utility of sitting down with Pyongyang again.

N. Korea Hands US Reporters 12-Year Terms - Blaine Harden, Washington Post. A North Korean court sentenced two US journalists Monday to 12 years in a labor camp, as the government of Kim Jong Il continued to ratchet up tension with the United States and its neighbors. Laura Ling and Euna Lee received harsher sentences than many outsiders expected. But several experts in South Korea predicted that talks would begin soon to negotiate their release. Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, were working for Current TV, a cable and Web network co-founded by former vice president Al Gore, when they were detained March 17 by North Korean soldiers along the border with China. The reporters were working on a story about North Koreans who flee the country, but the circumstances of their arrest are not clear.

US Protests N. Korea’s Treatment of Journalists - David E. Sanger and Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times. President Obama and his top national security aides on Monday urged North Korea to release “on humanitarian grounds” two American journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering North Korean territory. But administration officials said that the harsh sentences were likely to be used as a negotiating ploy by the North as it tries to avoid new sanctions in response to its nuclear test two weeks ago. In public statements, administration officials frequently referred to the two journalists as “young women” who might have inadvertently crossed the North Korean border, and urged North Korea to return them to their families. “Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, told reporters on Monday afternoon. Clearly, the sentencing on Monday of Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, to serve in North Korea’s famously brutal labor camps - where stories of starvation, overwork and mistreatment are legion - greatly complicated the Obama administration’s agenda.

US Calls for Jailed Journalists to be Released in North Korea - Malcolm Moore and Alex Spillius, Daily Telegraph. Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, were working on a television documentary about human trafficking for Current TV, a channel co-founded by Al Gore, the former US vice-president, when they were seized on March 17. According to the official Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang, the two journalists were guilty of a "grave crime" against North Korea and of illegally crossing the reclusive nation's border. Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, responded that President Barack Obama was "deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities". "We are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," he added. The state department reiterated its call for the journalists to be freed. Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and former UN ambassador who negotiated the release of other Americans from North Korea in the 1990s, said their conviction marked the beginning of a "high stakes poker game".

The Deadly Game of Entering North Korea - Richard Lloyd Parry, The Times. North Korea lets in a few thousand foreign tourists every year on tightly controlled, and expensive, guided tours. But over the decades a handful of foreigners have come a cropper after entering by more unconventional routes. A handful of US soldiers defected during the Cold War, including a sergeant named Charles Jenkins who deserted on impulse in 1965 and immediately regretted it. Over the next four decades, he was frequently beaten, forced to memorise chunks of North Korean ideology, played the part of an evil American in propaganda films, and married a Japanese woman who had been abducted by North Korean spies. Both of them were eventually released and today they live peacefully in Japan with their two children. In 1966, a Venezuelan communist poet named Ali Lameda went to Pyongyang to help translate the works of the country’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, into Spanish. He made the mistake of explaining to his North Korean comrades how ridiculously exaggerated their propaganda was – he ended up spending six years in prison before being sent home. A French translator, Jacques Sedillot, who was arrested at the same time, died in Pyongyang after being released from prison.

North Korean Labor Camps a Ghastly Prospect for US Journalists - John M. Glionna and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. North Korea's sentencing of two American TV journalists to 12 years of hard labor Monday could imperil the Obama administration's already difficult goal of curtailing the authoritarian nation's nuclear weapons ambitions. If no deal is reached, the two women face a grim future in a brutal prison system notorious for its lack of adequate food and medical supplies and its high death rate. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were convicted by the nation's top Central Court of an unspecified "grave crime" against the hard-line regime after they were arrested in March along the Chinese-North Korean border while reporting a story on human trafficking.

Convicted US Journalists Likely Pawns - Andrew Salmon, Washington Times. North Korea's sentencing of two American journalists to 12 years of "reform" through hard labor draws attention to one of the world's most unforgiving penal systems, even though analysts say it is unlikely the two will serve time in a gulag. Instead Euna Lee and Laura Ling were expected to become negotiating pawns as the North tests the Obama administration by steadily escalating tensions with the United States. Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling, who were captured in March while reporting a story on the North Korean-Chinese border about trafficking of North Korean women, were sentenced Monday after a five-day trial. The Obama administration struggled to keep its efforts to free the reporters separate from efforts to resolve a nuclear and missile dispute with the North.

Jailed Journalists Complicate Obama's Approach to N. Korea - Howard LaFranchi - Christian Science Monitor. Monday's conviction of two American journalists in a North Korean court and their sentencing to 12 years of hard labor for unspecified "grave crimes" will complicate President Obama's pursuit of a tougher policy against the rogue nation. The Obama administration has taken a gradually more aggressive stance toward North Korea since Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device on May 25. Given that Mr. Obama had previously been calling for a dialogue, "the only logical response for the administration is to shift to ... at least show North Korea that there are things the US and the world can do to hurt them," says Chaibong Hahm, a regional expert at the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif. This was reflected over the weekend in statements that were several notches more severe than previous pronouncements from Washington. Obama said Saturday: "We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

Hostages - Washington Post editorial. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are American journalists who traveled to northern China in March to tackle a tough and important story: the trafficking of North Korean women to China. Their work would have been risky at any time. But the two reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV happened to undertake their mission at a time when North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is seeking to provoke the Obama administration. The result: Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were taken prisoner by North Korea on March 17 in as-yet-unexplained circumstances and yesterday were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp by one of Mr. Kim's courts. They are, in a very real sense, hostages - condemned to be separated from their families and confined in what may be harsh conditions until a regime that seeks political and economic concessions from Washington chooses to release them. The treatment of these courageous women ought to give pause to those who argue that North Korea is susceptible to offers of "engagement"; that it seeks normal political and economic relations with the United States and other Western countries.

North Korea’s Cruel Verdict - New York Times editorial. North Korea’s bankrupt justice system has delivered a cruel verdict - 12 years of hard labor - to the American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. After a detention of nearly three months in perhaps the world’s most repressive country, they have already paid a huge and unfair price for doing their job. They should be released immediately. Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were detained on March 17 by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea. They were employed by Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company that was co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. News accounts said they were reporting on North Korean refugees who had fled the country - a highly sensitive issue - although Ms. Ling’s sister told ABC News that the women were working on a report about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China. Whatever the case, they do not deserve to be sent to a brutal labor camp where, according to international human rights activists and North Korean defectors, detainees endure beatings, hunger and inhumane workloads. With no access to lawyers or due process, the two journalists did not have anything approaching a fair chance to defend themselves.

The Horrors of N. Korea's Gulags - Peter Brookes, New York Post opinion. If there's a shred of good news in the sentencing of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years in a North Korean prison labor camp, it's that they'll probably never see the inside of one. That's because their plight is receiving significant media coverage here in the United States and across the globe. While Pyongyang hasn't yet linked them to anything more than "hostile acts" against the state (another thankful development), they could be swept up in the vortex of big-power politics that includes the likes of nukes and long-range missiles. Of course, Lee and Ling most likely aren't guilty of anything more than getting lost somewhere along the Chinese-North Korean border. Indeed, their efforts to expose the horrors of North Korean life are to be commended. Eventually, the regime will let them go; the real questions are: When, and at what price?

THE LONG WAR

CIA Urges Judge To Keep Bush-Era Documents Sealed - R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post. The Obama administration objected yesterday to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a federal judge that doing so would endanger national security and benefit al-Qaeda's recruitment efforts. In an affidavit, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta defended the classification of records describing the contents of the 92 videotapes, their destruction by the CIA in 2005 and what he called "sensitive operational information" about the interrogations. The forced disclosure of such material to the American Civil Liberties Union "could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed," Panetta argued.

US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Pentagon Encouraged on Pakistan, Wary on North Korea, Spokesman Says - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. Defense Department officials are encouraged by the Pakistani campaign in the country’s Swat Valley and in its provinces of Buner and Dir, but North Korea continues to be a vexing issue, the Pentagon press secretary said here today. Pakistan’s month-long offensive against the Taliban within its borders is going well, Geoff Morrell said during a Pentagon news conference. “We are hoping that the offensive continues to the point that these militants in this region are defeated,” he said. The United States continues to stand ready to provide whatever assistance the Pakistani military needs to finish the job, Morrell said. “But we are clearly encouraged by the fact that, ever since there was this encroachment on Islamabad by the Taliban and associated other militant groups, we are seeing an aggressive and sustained military operation in response,” he added. North Korea continues to be a problem, and the press secretary said the US position will continue to stress diplomacy. “Our focus is now and has been and likely will continue to be on coming up with diplomatic and economic pressures that will persuade the North from abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the platforms to deliver them,” he said. American efforts are focused on the United Nations and the Six-Party Talks with the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and North Korea.

Supreme Court Turns Down 'Don't Ask' Challenge - William Branigin, Washington Post. The Supreme Court today declined to hear a constitutional challenge to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay people from serving in the US military, a move that could effectively leave it to the Obama administration to resolve the long-controversial issue. In a separate action, the court also ruled unanimously that Americans cannot sue the current Iraqi government in US courts for acts by the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was driven from power by US invasion forces in 2003. In the "don't ask, don't tell" case, the Supreme Court sided with the Obama administration, which had urged the justices not to hear the appeal against the policy, even though Obama is on record as opposing it. The court thus spared the administration from having to defend in court a policy that the president eventually wants to abolish pending a review by the Pentagon.

US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Turf Battles on Intelligence Pose Test for Spy Chiefs - Mark Mazzetti, New York Times. On May 19, Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, sent a classified memorandum announcing that his office would use its authority to select the top American spy in each country overseas. One day later, Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, sent a dispatch of his own. Ignore Mr. Blair’s message, Mr. Panetta wrote to agency employees; the CIA was still in charge overseas, a role that CIA station chiefs had jealously guarded for decades. The dispute has posed an early test for both spymasters, with Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, now trying to negotiate a truce. The behind-the-scenes battle shows the intensity of struggles continuing between intelligence agencies whose roles were left ill defined after a structural overhaul in 2004 that was intended to harness greater cooperation and put an end to internecine fights.

UNITED KINGDOM

Political Outlook Grim for Britain's Gordon Brown - Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times. With his Labor Party having gone down in a crushing defeat in local and European elections, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown clung to political survival by his fingernails Monday amid more defections from his government and calls from within his party for him to step down. An almost palpable sense of gloom and desperation enshrouded Brown's official residence at 10 Downing Street as he and his advisors absorbed disastrous ballot results that showed Labor losing in Wales for the first time in nearly a century, an avowedly racist party winning a seat in the European Parliament, and the opposition Conservatives turning more of Britain's electoral map blue, their traditional color. Brown, 58, is now politically at his weakest since inheriting the premiership from the charismatic Tony Blair two years ago. Besides his increasing unpopularity with the public, reflected in polls, confidence in Brown is draining fast within the ruling Labor Party, of which he remains head.

Thin Red Line of Heroes - Stuart Koehl, Weekly Standard opinion. The British role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is slowly being consigned to the memory hole. To listen to most American commentators on the wars, you would not even know the British are there. Indeed, we only hear about them when one is accidentally killed by US fire, or when they are reducing their troop commitments (which makes it look like they are running away). Even conservative American commentators have had a somewhat condescending attitude towards the British forces, blaming them for the policies of the British government that, e.g., had them passively watch while Iranian Guards took a Zodiac full of British sailors hostage, or when it had them stand by while Shiite militias occupied their former base camp. But soldiers only follow the orders they are given by their civilian masters, and would we really want it any other way? It is fortunate, therefore, that British veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are finally putting their stories down on paper, and that these books are beginning to make their way into the American market. Two recent releases document with perception, wit, and humanity the unique experiences of two extraordinary British soldiers, which should put to rest any idea that the British army is becoming effete or less capable than it has been since Marlborough's day.

AFRICA

Mugabe Continues to Haunt Zimbabwe's Quest for Aid - Karin Brulliard, Washington Post. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is on his first official visit in Washington this week with a decidedly difficult sales pitch. He is expected to request funding for a nation that he recently said remains so unfree and unstable that it is "not a country where I can be confident about the future of all our children." The former opposition leader joined forces in February with his nemesis, autocratic President Robert Mugabe, in a marriage of convenience that Tsvangirai's party hopes will help build its control and rescue Zimbabwe's shattered economy. But progress has been hampered by disagreements and continued human rights abuses by Mugabe allies -- and, most observers agree, because Zimbabwe is broke. The arrangement has put Tsvangirai and his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in the difficult position of assuring investors and donors that coffers long looted by Mugabe are safe despite the rocky coalition.

AMERICAS

Acapulco, Long Dotted With Tourists, Is Now Home to Drug War - Marc Lacey, New York Times. Cliff divers, all-night discos, towering hotels on the sand - that is one side of Acapulco. But a four-hour gun battle over the weekend between soldiers and suspected drug traffickers made clear that the popular beach resort has a dark side and that no part of Mexico may be completely immune from the continuing drug war. The seaside shootout left 13 of the suspected drug traffickers, two of the soldiers and two bystanders - a father and son - dead, the authorities said on Monday. The scene was warlike, with the armed men who were believed to have belonged to the Beltrán Leyva cartel lobbing dozens of grenades at the advancing soldiers and exchanging thousands of rounds with them. With local residents and budget-minded tourists huddling on the ground for cover and shielding their ears from the explosions with their hands, the scene “was like something out of ‘Rambo,’ ” a witness told the newspaper Reforma.

Latin America’s Progress - Duncan Currie, National Review opinion. There are two Latin Americas. The first is a region of widespread poverty, crime, and corruption, where drug gangs wreak havoc and left-wing populists rail against Uncle Sam. This is the Latin America that generates sensational and provocative headlines - the Latin America of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the most-wanted drug baron in Mexico (who checks in at #701 on the latest Forbes list of the world’s richest people), and Hugo Chávez, the thuggish Venezuelan president who has formed an alliance with Iran and aided Colombian narcoterrorists. It is a Latin America that seems overrun with violence and paralyzed by its own history. But there is another Latin America: a region where national governments have significantly improved their fiscal and monetary policies. Where they have slashed their public debt, boosted their stock of foreign reserves, and tamed inflation. Where both small and large nations have aggressively pursued trade liberalization. And where, with the crucial support of market-friendly social democrats, a broad macroeconomic consensus is emerging.

ASIA PACIFIC

China Requires Censorship Software on New PCs - Andrew Jacobs, New York Times. China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other “unhealthy information” from the Internet. The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PCs starting July 1, would allow the government to regularly update computers with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites. The rules, issued last month, ratchet up Internet restrictions that are already among the most stringent in the world.

EUROPE

Economy Shows Cracks in European Union - Steven Erlander, New York Times. The European Union is an extraordinary experiment in shared sovereignty, creating a zone of peace that now stretches from Britain to the Balkans. The union of 27 countries is the world’s most formidable economic bloc, incorporating 491 million people in an integrated market that produces nearly a third more than the United States. But the global economic crisis has made it clear that Europe remains less than the sum of its parts. The crisis has presented the European Union with its greatest challenge, but even many committed Europeanists believe that the alliance is failing the test. European leaders, their focus on domestic politics, disagree sharply about what to do to combat the slump. They have feuded over how much to stimulate the economy. They argue about whether the European Central Bank should worry more about the deep recession or future inflation. And they have rushed to protect jobs in their home markets at the expense of those in other member countries.

Ukraine Premier Fails to Form Alliance to Oppose President - Clifford J. Levy, New York Times. Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko of Ukraine acknowledged Sunday night that talks to create an alliance between her party and opposition forces in Parliament had collapsed, putting an end to her plan to undercut her former ally, President Viktor A. Yushchenko. In a televised address, Ms. Tymoshenko said she had hoped to build a broad coalition to address the economic crisis, which has severely affected Ukraine. But she accused the opposition leader in Parliament, Viktor F. Yanukovich, a former prime minister, of betraying her. “He unilaterally, without warning anyone, quit the negotiation process, making a loud political statement, killing the merger and the chances for Ukraine,” Ms. Tymoshenko said. She reiterated that she would run for president in the next election, which is likely to be in January.

False Choices For Russia - Lev Gudkov, Igor Klyamkin, Georgy Satarov and Lilia Shevtsova, Washington Post. As intellectuals and liberal Russians, we have read with great interest many recommendations American experts have compiled for President Obama regarding the US-Russian relationship. While there are several constructive ideas, many of these reports reflect a serious misunderstanding of the situation in Russia and the course it is following. We object, for example, to the basic proposition of calling for a return to realpolitik because some believe that the worsening of Russian-American relations was mainly caused by Washington's insistence on "tying policies to values." The result, some American "realists" argue, is that the United States needs to build a new relationship with Russia based on "common interests and common threats." Yet in blaming the Bush administration for trying to "teach" Russia about democracy, these realists appear to accept the official Russian position. In our view, America has ignored the problems of democracy and civil society in Russia, but even turning a blind eye did not prevent the breakdown in the US-Russian relationship - and now Obama is essentially being asked to treat Russia as though it is incapable of democratic transformation.

MIDDLE EAST

Obama, Netanyahu Discuss Next Steps - Christina Bellantoni, Washington Times. President Obama, taking the next steps he promised in his address to the Muslim world, spoke Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to outline the goals he mentioned in the speech and deployed his special envoy to the region. The men spoke 20 minutes about the speech. Mr. Obama told Mr. Netanyahu that he "looked forward to hearing the prime minister's upcoming speech outlining his views on peace and security," the White House said, calling the talk "constructive." Mr. Netanyahu will speak next week about his own vision for Middle East peace and policy. He is expected to focus on Iran and Syria. The White House suggested that Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo could be linked to high voter turnout in Sunday's elections in Lebanon.

US Envoy Begins New Middle East Peace Push - Reuters. US President Barack Obama's special Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, began a new push to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on Tuesday by opening a series of talks with leaders in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at odds with Obama over the president's demand to halt Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and has not endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, a cornerstone of US Middle East policy. Obama spoke to Netanyahu by phone on Monday and the White House said the president "reiterated the principal elements of his Cairo speech, including his commitment to Israel's security." In his address to the Muslim world in Cairo last week, Obama also called on Israel to freeze settlements.

Carving Up Jerusalem - Washington Times editorial. The Obama administration is creeping closer to a move to carve up Jerusalem. White House ambiguity holds the holy city hostage to Palestinian ambition. Late Friday, the White House released Presidential Determination 2009-19, "Suspension of Limitations Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act." This determination is a legally required waiver to continue to delay the May 31, 1999, deadline for moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nearly identical memos like this have been issued every six months for the past decade. In the George W. Bush years - except during his lame-duck period - the memo contained a crucial sentence: "My administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem." The Obama team dropped that passage.

Upon Sober Reflection, Bahrain Reconsiders the Wages of Sin - Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal. Every weekend, bumper-to-bumper traffic blocks the causeway into this small island nation as visitors from nearby Saudi Arabia flock to delights unavailable at home: movie theaters, bars and, for some, commercial sex. With few other attractions, Bahrain's booming tourism industry thrives on the island's reputation as a freewheeling oasis just a short drive from major Saudi cities. Bahrain has little oil of its own; tourism, mostly by the four million Saudis who cross the causeway each year, accounts for a tenth of its economy. All of this is endangered, as Bahraini legislators press to scrap the country's drinking laws - currently the most liberal in the Persian Gulf - and to impose near-total prohibition. The Parliament's elected lower chamber unanimously approved a motion last month to prohibit alcohol in hotels, restaurants, duty-free shops and aboard Gulf Air, the national airline. Lawmakers acted amid outrage over a widely circulated men's Web-site article placing Bahraini capital Manama in the world's "top 10 cities to pursue vice and debauchery."

SOUTH ASIA

Indian Police Open Fire on Protesters in Kashmir - Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America. In Indian Kashmir, at least four people were injured when security forces opened fire to disperse demonstrators protesting the deaths of two young women allegedly raped and killed by Indian security forces. Despite barricades put up by police, thousands of angry protesters poured into the streets of Shopian, a town on the outskirts of the Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar on Monday. Police used tear gas and fired live rounds to quell the demonstration, injuring several people. Police said the protesters had turned violent and pelted security forces with stones. Monday's protest was held a day after forensic tests confirmed that a 17-year-old girl and her 22-year-old sister-in-law, whose bodies were found floating in a stream on May 30, had been raped. The cause of the death of the two women, who were residents of Shopian, is still being investigated.

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

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.