Thousands of US Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday morning, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the US military's new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces.

--Washington Post

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

US Launches South Afghan Offensive - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The US military launched a major operation in southern Afghanistan, an early test of the Obama administration's new strategy for beating back the resurgent Taliban and stabilizing the country in advance of this summer's presidential elections. Operation Khanjar, or "strike of the sword," began shortly after 1 a.m. local time when close to 4,000 Marines, backed by about 700 Afghan security personnel, moved by air and ground into villages in the Helmand River Valley, a major opium-producing region and Taliban stronghold. US commanders said the forces would build an array of small patrol bases designed to forge closer ties with local people and better protect them from militants, borrowing an approach used in Iraq that is central to the administration's new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. The troops hope to root out pockets of Taliban fighters and find and destroy insurgent weapons caches, a US officer in Kabul said. The troops will also seek to interdict opium shipments and persuade local farmers to plant alternative crops, such as wheat, he said.

US Marines Try to Retake Afghan Valley From Taliban - Richard A. Oppel, Jr., New York Times. Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force. Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.

US Marines Launch Major Operation in Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post. Thousands of US Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday morning, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the US military's new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban have evicted local police and government officials, and taken power. Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban, and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.

US Launches Major Offensive Against Taliban - The Times. Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taliban territory. Operation Khanjar, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, heartland of the Taliban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region. In swiftly seizing the valley, commanders hope to accomplish within hours what NATO troops had failed to achieve over several years, and by doing so turn the tide of a stale-mated war in time for an Afghan presidential election on August 20. "Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan said in a statement.

On the Afghanistan Frontier, Change May Be at Hand - Laura King, Los Angeles Times. In the enveloping darkness of a starless summer night, the sizzle-thump of incoming Taliban rockets is swiftly answered by the percussive boom of outgoing US artillery. But the American troops manning this base in eastern Afghanistan know that their elusive nighttime foe can slip away to sanctuary in Pakistan, just 20 miles away. The militants firing rockets at this installation, informally known as Camp Salerno, in all likelihood traveled here from Pakistan's tribal areas, home turf of several major Taliban commanders and their militias. The flow of fighters and arms into Afghanistan from Pakistan - and the tribal belt's use as a fighter haven - has long been a key concern of US and other Western officials. During a visit to the region last week, US national security advisor James L. Jones Jr. urged Pakistan to press ahead with a long-delayed army offensive against Taliban fighters who had become entrenched in the country's northwest. So far, though, the Pakistani military campaign has been centered on the Swat Valley, far from the border zone, and the tribal areas remain a wellspring of insurgent activity: suicide attacks, roadside explosive devices, vehicle bombs.

US-Afghan Push Targets Taliban Haven - Jason Straziuso, Associated Press. Thousands of US Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops poured into Taliban-infested villages of southern Afghanistan with armor and helicopters Thursday in the first major operation under President Obama's strategy to stabilize the country. The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium-poppy-producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election. Officials described the operation, dubbed Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase, involving nearly 4,000 of the newly arrived Marines and 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces.

No Limit in Place for Pending Request on Troops in Afghanistan - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post. The nation's top military officer said yesterday that no limits have been placed on the number or types of troops the new US commander in Afghanistan can request as he seeks to carry out a counterinsurgency strategy there. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is conducting a 60-day assessment of the Afghanistan campaign and has been advised to tell Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and President Obama, "Here's what I need." "There are no preconditions associated with that," Mullen said. "He's . . . been told, 'In this assessment, you come back and ask for what you need.' There are certainly no intended limits with respect to that kind of request."

In Refugee Aid, Pakistan’s War Has New Front - Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times. Islamist charities and the United States are competing for the allegiance of the two million people displaced by the fight against the Taliban in Swat and other parts of Pakistan - and so far, the Islamists are in the lead. Although the United States is the largest contributor to a United Nations relief effort, Pakistani authorities have refused to allow American officials or planes to deliver the aid in the camps for displaced people. The Pakistanis do not want to be associated with their unpopular ally. Meanwhile, in the absence of effective aid from the government, hard-line Islamist charities are using the refugee crisis to push their anti-Western agenda and to sour public opinion against the war and the United States.

Taliban Buying Children for Suicide Bombers - Sara A. Carter, Washington Times. Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and US targets, US Defense Department and Pakistani officials say. A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 - huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year. "[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars," a US Defense Department official told reporters recently. He spoke on the condition that he not be named because of ongoing intelligence efforts to catch Mehsud, a prime target for a US and Pakistani anti-Taliban campaign.

Pakistan Fights, Congress Sleeps - Wall Street Journal editorial. More now than ever, Pakistan is acting as if it is committed to fighting the Taliban. The military in recent days has expanded a high-stakes offensive along the Afghan border, while the government enjoys wide public support, even as casualties and refugees mount. So naturally, the US Congress is finding a way not to help. An aid package has hit repeated hurdles on Capitol Hill, while US allies shortchange Pakistan on humanitarian assistance for the people displaced by the fighting. This is myopic and dangerous. If Pakistan fails to defeat the Islamist insurgency, the consequences will resonate far and wide, in the worst case with al Qaeda getting Pakistan's nuclear stockpile. Earlier this year, the Obama Administration prodded, pleaded and shamed Pakistan to fight. Passive acceptance of Taliban gains turned into the current counteroffensive. The military has since taken back the Swat Valley and shifted its sights to such tribal regions as Waziristan. Count that a tentative success for Pakistan and the Obama foreign policy team.

IRAQ

Insurgents Hail Pullout of Troops From Cities - Campbell Robertson, New York Times. A day after Iraqis celebrated the formal withdrawal of American combat troops from towns and cities, leaders of some of the most high-profile insurgent and opposition groups had their say on Wednesday. Statements were released by a former senior ally of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni clerical association that has sanctioned armed resistance and Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric, all of which hailed the withdrawal as a victory for the resistance and compared it to the beginning of the revolt against the British occupation in 1920. Iraqi opposition and insurgent leaders consider themselves to have as much legitimacy as, or more than, Iraqi government officials, and formal statements on such a symbolic occasion are expected. The statements all commanded Iraqis to continue fighting the American military until it had left the country completely; nearly 130,000 troops remain. The statements also insisted, in unusually clear language, that Iraqis not turn their violence on one another.

June Death Toll of Iraqis Highest in 11 Months - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. Offering a possible harbinger of what is to come now that US troops have withdrawn from Iraq's cities, the death toll in June among Iraqis was the highest in 11 months, the nation's Health Ministry reported Wednesday. A total of 438 Iraqis died in June in shootings, bombings and assassinations, 68 of them members of the security forces. That's the highest number since July 2008, when 465 Iraqis died violently, and includes the tolls from a series of deadly bombings such as the one near Kirkuk last week that killed more than 70 people. It's also 2 2/3 times the figure for May, when 165 people died, the lowest monthly toll of the war. Iraqis have this week been celebrating the departure of US troops from their cities, but in fact the withdrawal has been taking place for months. By June, most American military personnel had vacated the bases they had been designated to leave.

Hussein Pointed to Iranian Threat - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda. Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region." Former president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq six years ago on the grounds that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to international security. Administration officials at the time also strongly suggested Iraq had significant links to al-Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Senators Question US Role in Hostage Deal - Sara A. Carter and Eli Lake, Washington Times. Two senior Republican senators sent a letter to President Obama on Wednesday expressing concern over reports that the administration negotiated "directly or indirectly" with terrorists for the release of British hostages in Iraq. In a letter made available to The Washington Times, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said that the US release last month of Laith al-Khazali, a member of a militant Shi'ite group called Asaib al-Haq, may have been part of a deal to gain freedom for three British hostages held since 2007. On June 21, the group sent the bodies of two British hostages to the British Embassy in Baghdad. The other three are still being held. The White House has denied negotiating with terrorists and repeated that denial Wednesday.

The US in Iraq: An Economics Lesson - Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, Los Angeles Times opinion. Tuesday, the US "stood down" in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns - the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in US history. We have relegated the car and suicide bombings to the inside pages of newspapers, accepting at face value that the "surge" has calmed things down enough so we can finally leave the whole sorry Iraq adventure behind us. But not so fast. The conflict that began in 2003 is far from over for us, and the next chapter - confronting a Taliban that reasserted itself in Afghanistan while the US was sidetracked in Iraq - will be expensive and bloody. The death toll for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan reached 5,000 in June. An additional 80,000 Americans have been wounded or injured since the war in Iraq began. More than 300,000 of our troops have required medical treatment, and Army statistics show that more than 17% of our returning soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, in Iraq, even though most of the population has long told pollsters they can't wait for US forces to leave, US officials have said we are likely to station 50,000 troops at military bases in the country for the foreseeable future. This is because the situation in Iraq is highly precarious.

IRAN

Iran Unrest Shifts Power Dynamics - Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post. The large-scale protests in Iran since its hotly disputed June 12 presidential election have shaken the Islamic republic's long-standing balance of political power. For decades, hard-line members of Iran's cleric-led government controlled the judiciary, military, intelligence and state media. But reformists also had wide public support and room to push for more moderate social and political policies. That delicate balance worked for both sides, providing an outlet for people who chafed at the Islamic regime's austerity and isolationism, while ensuring that the core system, created after the 1979 revolution, would not be seriously challenged. The reformists did not advocate a revolutionary overhaul. The general view was that Iranians did not want another revolution.

Iran Opposition Leaders Speak Amid Crackdown - Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal. Iranian opposition figures re-emerged to accuse the government of a virtual coup against its people and plan a new political party, even as the regime hardened its crackdown on opponents and accused them of endangering national security. The tensions within Iran reignited just as Tehran's diplomatic conflict with the European Union heated up, with the government threatening to cut off relations with EU countries unless they apologize for considering pulling their ambassadors out of Iran. Increasingly, the government has been seeking to cast its opponents as outlaws. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has been blamed for the blood spilled during the clashes between protestors and security forces over the outcome of the presidential election, in which the government says he came in a distant second to the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran Leader's Foes to Continue Disputing Election - Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times. Opponents of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went on the offensive Wednesday, proclaiming his government "illegitimate." They vowed to continue disputing his reelection despite a violent crackdown on their protests and dire warnings against challenging the vote. Hours earlier, in a potentially sharp escalation of the rift within the Iranian establishment, the pro-government Basiji militia asked prosecutors to investigate opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi on numerous allegations, including "disturbing the nation's security," according to a report by the Fars news agency. After two weeks of street clashes, Tehran has remained calm for several days. Signaling a return to normality, cellphone text-messaging services, cut off the night before the June 12 election, were restored.

Defiant Opposition Leaders Refuse to Accept Ahmadinejad Government - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Three opposition leaders, including a former president, openly defied Iran's top political and religious authorities Wednesday, vowing to resist a government they have deemed illegitimate after official certification of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection. Their defiance in the face of harsh official denunciations and threats of arrest and prosecution appeared to dash the government's hopes of pressuring the opposition into accepting the disputed June 12 election. Rather than dropping his complaints of extensive vote-rigging, leading opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took his fight to a new level Wednesday, risking arrest by urging followers to continue their protests. After formal certification of the election results Monday night by the Guardian Council, a top supervisory body of Shiite Muslim clerics and jurists, Iranian authorities warned that no further protests would be tolerated.

Opposition Leaders Court Arrest by Defying 'Unlawful Iranian Regime' - Martin Fletcher, The Times. Three of Iran’s most prominent opposition leaders flagrantly courted arrest yesterday by denouncing President Ahmadinejad’s Government as illegitimate, one day after the regime said that it would tolerate no more challenges to the election result. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister who lost the election, said that the suppression of dissent was tantamount to a coup. “It’s not yet too late,” he declared on his website. “It is our historical responsibility to continue our protests to defend the rights of the people . . . and prevent the blood spilt by hundreds of thousands of martyrs from leading to a police state.” Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami, 65, a popular former President, accused the regime of mounting a “velvet revolution against the people and democracy” and called the security crackdown “poisonous”.

Europe Weighs Pulling Envoys From Tehran - Alan Cowell and Stephen Castle, New York Times. Iran risked diplomatic isolation from the European Union, as European officials discussed whether to withdraw the ambassadors of all 27 member nations in a dispute over the detention of the British Embassy’s Iranian personnel. European diplomats said Wednesday that they had made no formal decision to order their envoys home, but that the measure was an option as the European Union- Iran’s biggest trading partner- tried to work out how to defuse the dispute in a way that would shield other embassies in Tehran from similar action. Withdrawing all 27 ambassadors would be a rare and unusually forceful display of European anger at Iran’s crackdown on dissent after the June 12 presidential election, and several diplomats said the European Union would prefer to avoid such a move.

Time for an Israeli Strike? - John R. Bolton, Washington Post opinion. With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever. Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability. Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not. He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these concerns that the international community has."

THE LONG WAR

ACLU Says Government Used False Confessions - Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post. The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in US custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation. "The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture and other abuse violates centuries of US law and suggests the current administration is not really serious about breaking with the past," said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a lawsuit challenging his detention.

Secret CIA Jails an Issue in Terror Case - Benjamin Weiser, New York Times. Lawyers for a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court have told a judge in Manhattan that they want to visit the “black sites” run overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency where their client was held for about two years after he was captured in 2004. The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, has been charged with participating in a conspiracy that included the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks organized by Al Qaeda that killed 224 people and injured thousands. Mr. Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is believed to be in his mid-30s, became a fugitive after the attacks, and later worked as a bodyguard and cook for Osama bin Laden, military authorities have said.

Secrecy v. Sunshine - Washington Post editorial. It is impossible to perfectly balance the need to protect national security with the transparency required in a democracy. But a DC federal judge has fashioned a wise compromise in the cases of detainees challenging their captivity at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that respects both imperatives. Last month, Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia rebuffed an administration request to put under a protective order - and keep from public view - all evidence used to justify the government's detention of Guantanamo prisoners. Judge Hogan concluded that such an action was overly broad and unnecessary to protect against disclosure of sensitive national security information. He also concluded that the government's action "attempts to usurp the Court's discretion to seal judicial records" by eliminating the judge's ability to make a determination on individual cases. Lawyers for the detainees had opposed the government's move, as had USA Today, the New York Times and the Associated Press. Judge Hogan ordered the Justice Department to file unclassified or declassified versions of the evidence by July 29.

Judging John Yoo - Los Angeles Times editorial. In their notorious August 2002 "torture memo," Justice Department officials Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo defined torture narrowly as pain associated with "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It was a strained and selective reading of the law, and it was rescinded in 2004 by Jack Goldsmith, Bybee's successor as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. But can Yoo, now a professor at UC Berkeley, be held responsible for the actions of others who relied on his legal reasoning? A federal judge in San Francisco seems to think so, but we have our doubts. As much as we were outraged by Yoo's opinions, we worry that equating legal analysis with the acts of policymakers would set a poisonous precedent. Only if Yoo exceeded his role as a lawyer, which he may well have done, should he be subject to civil recriminations for his work.

CYBER WARFARE

US Takes Aim at Cyberwarfare - Shaun Waterman, Washington Times. The Pentagon's decision last week to establish a unified cybercommand to defend the military's computer networks and attack those of US enemies raises at least as many questions as it answers, analysts and experts in the field say. "How does it fit into the strategic goals of defending our economy and our way of life?" asked Marcus Sachs, who helped set up the US military's first cyberwarfare unit in 1998. "How will it relate to other government agencies?" asked Mr. Sachs, who is now director of the Internet Storm Center, a volunteer warning and analysis service that works with Internet service providers to counter such threats as computer viruses. In a memo to military leaders last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered US Strategic Command - the military entity in charge of US nuclear and space weapons - to set up the new cybercommand by October this year and to have it fully functioning by October 2010.

Defend America, One Laptop at a Time - Jack Goldsmith, New York Times opinion. Our economy, energy supply, means of transportation and military defenses are dependent on vast, interconnected computer and telecommunications networks. These networks are poorly defended and vulnerable to theft, disruption or destruction by foreign states, criminal organizations, individual hackers and, potentially, terrorists. In the last few months it has been reported that Chinese network operations have found their way into American electricity grids, and computer spies have broken into the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter project. Acknowledging such threats, President Obama recently declared that digital infrastructure is a “strategic national asset,” the protection of which is a national security priority. One of many hurdles to meeting this goal is that the private sector owns and controls most of the networks the government must protect. In addition to banks, energy suppliers and telecommunication companies, military and intelligence agencies use these private networks. This is a dangerous state of affairs, because the firms that build and run computer and communications networks focus on increasing profits, not protecting national security.

AMERICAS

Ousted Honduran President Plans Return But Future Is Unclear - Scott Wilson, Washington Post. Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is preparing to return to his country, days after the military pushed him from office and into exile. But recent Latin American and Caribbean history shows that presidents who do manage to return to their homes after a coup are rarely the leaders they had been - complicating the Obama administration's diplomatic calculations. Zelaya is hoping to land in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, within days. If he does, he will likely be flanked by human shields, led by the secretary general of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, to prevent the immediate arrest that his unelected successor has promised. The Obama administration has said it favors Zelaya's return.

Honduras Targets Protesters With Emergency Decree - William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post. The new Honduran government clamped down on street protests and news organizations Wednesday as lawmakers passed an emergency decree that limits public gatherings following the military-led coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office. The decree also allows for suspects to be detained for 24 hours and continues a nighttime curfew. Media outlets complained that the government was ordering them not to report any news or opinion that could "incite" the public. A dozen former ministers from the Zelaya government remain in hiding, some hunkered down in foreign embassies, fearing arrest. News organizations here remain polarized. Journalists working for small independent media - or for those loyal to Zelaya - have reported being harassed by officials.

Compromise Is Sought to Honduras Standoff - Marc Lacey and Ginger Thompson, New York Times. As the public standoff between Honduras and the rest of the world hardened, quiet negotiations got under way on Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a possible return of the nation’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya. After a marathon session that stretched close to dawn, the Organization of American States “vehemently” condemned the removal of Mr. Zelaya over the weekend and issued an ultimatum to Honduras’s new government: Unless Mr. Zelaya is returned to power within 72 hours, the nation will be suspended from the group. Diplomats said they had rarely seen the hemisphere’s leaders unite so solidly behind a common cause. The new Honduran government was equally resolute, warning that there was no chance Mr. Zelaya would be restored to office and that the nation would defend itself by force.

Honduras Given Deadline to Reinstate Ousted President - Ken Ellingwood and Alex Renderos, Los Angeles Times. Ramping up pressure on Honduras' interim rulers, the Organization of American States threatened Wednesday to suspend the nation's membership if ousted President Manuel Zelaya was not returned to power within 72 hours. The move prompted Zelaya to announce he would delay plans to return to Honduras until the weekend. Zelaya, deposed by the Honduran army Sunday in a coup that has drawn broad international condemnation, had said earlier he would go back today, accompanied by other regional leaders. The OAS resolution, issued in the early morning hours after an emergency session in Washington, condemned the coup and said the group would only recognize Zelaya and his representatives as the legitimate government of Honduras.

OAS Sets Deadline to Suspend Honduras - Nichlas Casey and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal. Tensions between a defiant Honduras and the international community rose on Wednesday as the Organization of American States threatened to suspend the country within three days if it didn't reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup Sunday. As the clock began to tick, the US government said it was hopeful for a diplomatic solution, even as the Pentagon suspended military relations between Washington and Tegucigalpa. Two senior US officials met late Tuesday with Mr. Zelaya, a leftist and frequent critic of US policies, and told him Washington was committed to seeing him back in power, according to American officials briefed on the diplomacy. As a gesture of his willingness to negotiate, Mr. Zelaya put off plans to return to Honduras Thursday - a trip that was shaping up as a showdown - until the weekend. He has pledged he won't seek re-election when his term ends in January. Honduras's military launched the coup amid concerns that Mr. Zelaya was seeking to amend the Honduran Constitution to extend his rule indefinitely.

Honduras's Coup Is President Zelaya's Fault - Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Washington Post opinion. Any time a bunch of soldiers break into a presidential palace, pick up the president and put him on a flight to exile, as happened in Honduras last Sunday, you have a "coup." But, unlike most coup targets in Latin America's tortuous republican history, Honduras's deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, bears the biggest responsibility for his overthrow. A member of the rancid oligarchy he now decries, Zelaya took office in 2006 as the leader of one of the two center-right parties that have dominated Honduran politics for decades. His general platform, his support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and his alliances with business organizations gave no inkling of the fact that halfway into his term he would become a political cross-dresser. Suddenly, in 2007, he declared himself a socialist and began to establish close ties with Venezuela. In December of that year, he incorporated Honduras into Petrocaribe, a mechanism set up by Hugo Chávez for lavishing oil subsidies on Latin American and Caribbean countries in exchange for political subservience. Then his government joined the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), Venezuela's answer to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, ostensibly a commercial alliance but in practice a political conspiracy that seeks to expand populist dictatorship to the rest of Latin America.

Ally's Ouster Gives Venezuela's Chávez a Stage, an Opportunity - Juan Forero, Washington Post. An ally was in trouble, toppled in a military coup. And the television cameras were rolling. The ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya's most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran eventually succeeds in regaining power. Ever since Zelaya was hustled into exile Sunday by the military, Chávez has been a whirlwind of activity. Using Venezuela's oil-fueled influence to organize summits at which he has been the central speaker, he is spreading his vision of Latin America and calling for Hondurans to rise up against those who deposed Zelaya.

Argentines Question Vote During Outbreak - Alexei Barrionuevo and Donald G. McNeil, Jr., New York Times. As Argentina struggled Wednesday to control a fast-spreading outbreak of swine flu, some health officials criticized the government’s decision to go ahead with national congressional elections last weekend. The officials said they had wanted to declare a state of emergency last week and delay the elections as part of a move to stop public gatherings and to shift the country’s attention to the epidemic. Several of the officials, including some who advised the government on the outbreak, said publicly that the country’s former health minister, Graciela Ocaña, who resigned on Monday, had recommended postponing the vote. With at least 43 fatalities, Argentina surged into third place in the world for swine flu deaths this week, passing Canada and now trailing only the United States and Mexico.

ASIA-PACIFIC

US Issues Sanctions To Press North Korea - Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal. The Obama administration sanctioned two North Korea-linked firms it said have facilitated weapons proliferation, while US officials said a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying arms to Myanmar's military regime has changed course. The sanctions initiate a new phase of what the administration intends to be broad financial pressure, from Washington and through the United Nations, on Pyongyang's arms industry, following recent North Korean nuclear and missile tests. In related efforts, US naval vessels have closely tracked the cargo vessel for nearly two weeks on the suspicion it was violating UN Security Council resolutions. The episode has been viewed as a test for US sanctions adopted in June that call for intercepting ships and aircraft believed to be trafficking North Korean arms or nuclear materials.

US 'Ready' for N. Korean Missile - Bill Gertz, Washington Times. US missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens US territory, the commander of the US Northern Command told The Washington Times. "The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any US territory," said Air Force Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart, Northcom commander. The general said the United States won't activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country's last test missile did.

China is the Key to North Korea - Los Angeles Times editorial. President Obama says he'd like to break the cycle in which North Korea provokes an international crisis to extract aid and concessions from global powers that are trying to sanction Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. The key to ending this brinkmanship, however, lies not with Kim but with Beijing. China is North Korea's main Communist ally and trading partner, and although it would like to see an end to Pyongyang's nuclear program, it has so far demonstrated greater concern about the prospect of regime collapse that would likely create an economic crisis in the region. China's patience seems to be wearing thin, as it did sign on to the June 12 UN resolution. Obama's coordinator on the resolution, Ambassador Philip Goldberg, is in China this week and must work to convince the government that further steps are needed. A credible threat from Beijing to cut off trade could persuade Pyongyang to give up on nuclear weapons. As with Iran, Obama should make clear to Kim that Washington seeks nuclear disarmament, not regime change. At the same time, he should make clear to China that if the North Korean regime were to collapse, the United States and its allies would help share the economic burden.

Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy March Draws Thousands - Keith Bradsher, New York Times. Thousands of people joined a pro-democracy march here on Wednesday, although the turnout fell short of a candlelight vigil held nearly four weeks ago to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing. An enormous crowd for the annual June 4 candlelight vigil, the largest since 1990, had raised the hopes of Hong Kong democracy advocates that the same enthusiasm might carry over to their movement. The movement has been struggling after several small successes from 2003 to 2005, including winning support for blocking the government’s planned introduction of stringent internal security legislation. The immediacy of democracy demands here has faded somewhat as Beijing officials have ruled out direct elections for the chief executive until 2017 and the legislature until 2020.

EUROPE

US Hardens Its Stance Ahead of Summit With Russia - Jonathan Weisman, Gregory L. White and Alan Cullison, Wall Street Journal. The Obama White House on Wednesday adopted a hard line against negotiating away missile-defense sites in Eastern Europe and limiting NATO expansion in the former Soviet Union, just days ahead of a summit meeting in Moscow. The hardened posture made it clear the Kremlin wouldn't make headway on two of its top priorities for the summit. "We shouldn't have excessive hopes" for the meeting, said a senior Russian diplomat in Moscow. "Despite all this constructive atmosphere, the deeper you get into details, the more difficulties you find." In the past few weeks, the Russians have recognized the controversial re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, forced peacekeepers out of Georgia, and suggested that Mr. Obama can realize his ambitious goals to reduce nuclear weapons only if he pulls back on the US's missile-defense plans.

Russia's Grand Inquisitor - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. As Barack Obama packs for his trip to Russia next week, he should bring along a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov." For the modern Russia of Vladimir Putin is still struggling with the same political riddles that Fyodor Dostoyevsky described 130 years ago. Human beings would happily trade their freedom for food and security, Dostoyevsky wrote in the novel's famous chapter, "The Grand Inquisitor." In place of this anarchic freedom, the Inquisitor offered the people "miracle, mystery and authority. And mankind rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep, and that at last such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much suffering, had been taken from their hearts." There's a palpable sense here that Putin has brought "miracle, mystery and authority" to a Russia that was severely traumatized by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The country is certainly less free than it was under Boris Yeltsin, but Putin is immensely popular - and nobody wants to return to the crazy, freewheeling time of transition.

Russia Is Back on the Warpath - Cathy Young, Wall Street Journal opinion. With President Barack Obama's trip to Moscow on Monday, you might expect Russia to avoid stirring up any trouble. Yet the Russian media are now abuzz with speculation about a new war in Georgia, and some Western analysts are voicing similar concerns. The idea seems insane. Nonetheless, the risk is real. One danger sign is persistent talk of so-called Georgian aggression against the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia recognized as independent states after the war last August. "Georgia is rattling its weapons . . . and has not given up on attempts to solve its territorial problems by any means," Gen. Nikolai Makarov, who commanded Russian troops in Georgia in 2008, told the Novosti news agency on June 17. Similar warnings have been aired repeatedly by the state-controlled media. Independent Russian commentators, such as columnist Andrei Piontkovsky, note that this has the feel of a propaganda campaign to prepare the public for a second war. Most recently, Moscow has trotted out a Georgian defector, Lt. Alik D. Bzhania, who claims that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "intends to restart the war."

Albanian Election Result in Dispute - Associated Press. The governing Democratic Party claimed on Wednesday that it won weekend parliamentary elections, but the opposition Socialists disputed that, and election officials said it was too early to tell. Near-complete results showed Prime Minister Sali Berisha's Democrats were ahead by just over one percentage point, but it was unclear whether Mr. Berisha had secured enough seats in parliament to govern alone. Democratic Party spokeswoman Majlinda Bregu said Mr. Berisha won 71 of the house's 140 seats and could govern without forming a coalition. However, election commission spokesman Leonard Olli declined to confirm the Democrats' claim they had secured 71 seats.

MIDDLE EAST

Israel and Hamas 'Both Guilty of War Crimes' - The Times. Israeli and Palestinian troops both committed war crimes in the recent war in Gaza, Amnesty International has claimed in the first in-depth human rights report on the war. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed by high precision artillery, while others were shot at close range, the report said. It also described rocket fire attacks by Gaza's militant Hamas rulers against Israeli towns as war crimes. The organisation called on Israel publicly to pledge not to use artillery, white phosphorus and other imprecise weapons in densely populated areas, and urged Hamas to stop its rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Amnesty, which first accused Israel of war crimes shortly after the fighting ended on January 18, said "disturbing questions" remain about why high-precision weapons like tank shells and air-delivered bombs and missiles "killed so many children and other civilians."

Amnesty Details Gaza 'War Crimes' - BBC News. Israel committed war crimes and carried out reckless attacks and acts of wanton destruction in its Gaza offensive, an independent human rights report says. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed using high-precision weapons, while others were shot at close range, the group Amnesty International says. Its report also calls rocket attacks by Palestinian militants war crimes and accuses Hamas of endangering civilians. The Israeli military says its conduct was in line with international law. Israel has attributed some civilian deaths to "professional mistakes", but has dismissed wider criticism that its attacks were indiscriminate and disproportionate.

BOOKS

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age - Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war - indeed, the US Army calls it armed social work - in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.

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.