Army chiefs are drawing up plans to withdraw British troops from outlying bases in Afghanistan. In what would be a significant change of strategy against the growing Taliban insurgency, they are considering abandoning several bases including Musa Qala, the scene of bloody battles that claimed 15 British lives. Army forces would attempt to hold only the larger towns in Helmand province. It is understood the new “retrenchment” strategy is backed by the head of the army, General Sir David Richards..

-- The Times

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

All Afghan War Options by Obama Aides Said to Call for More Troops - Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, New York Times. Advisers to President Obama are preparing three options for escalating the war effort in Afghanistan, all of them calling for more American troops, as he moves closer to a decision on the way forward in the eight-year-old war, officials said Saturday. The options include Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for roughly another 40,000 troops; a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops; and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Officials hope to present the options to Mr. Obama this week before he leaves on a trip to Asia. While some civilian and military officials believe Mr. Obama is seeking a middle ground in the debate over Afghanistan, aides denied he has made any decision or is leaning toward any of the options. Still, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appears to be supportive of the middle option, some officials said, and his view is thought to be pivotal because of Mr. Obama’s respect for him and his status as a holdover from a Republican administration. The three options define the contours of a debate that has played out in public for more than two months. General McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, and his advocates argue the war cannot be won without a major infusion of forces to protect the population and ultimately turn it against the Taliban. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others oppose a buildup in a war they believe cannot be won through conventional means and that diverts attention from Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is primarily located. There are currently 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Obama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops for Afghanistan - Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers. President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops. Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the US is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional US trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said. The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional US troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops. The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a "low-risk option" that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.

US, Afghans Target Taliban Region - Alan Cullison and Anand Gopal, Wall Street Journal. US and Afghan forces are engaging in heavy fighting against the resurgent Taliban militants in the Kunduz and Badghis provinces of northern Afghanistan, pushing into once-peaceful areas overseen by European allies. In restive Kunduz province bordering Tajikistan, US special operations forces and the Afghan army have carried out a major offensive against the Taliban over the past several days in the Chahar Dara district, a Taliban stronghold near the provincial capital, officials said. "This is the biggest operation seen so far," said Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar. "We've been able to kill a lot of Taliban." The Taliban, while saying insurgent casualties were limited, confirmed that the fighting now raging in Kunduz is at its fiercest since the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001. "The last time they had a major operation we abandoned our positions in the villages to avoid civilian casualties," said the Taliban spokesman for Kunduz, Wasiq, who like many Afghans goes by one name. "This time we have decided not to cede any ground." German army Lt. Col. Frank Warda, spokesman for the coalition's Regional Command North, said he couldn't comment on the operation because it is led by Afghan troops. Kunduz and adjoining provinces of northern Afghanistan are under the responsibility of some 4,250 German troops.

Allied Forces ‘May Abandon Most of Northern Helmand’ - Tom Coghlan and Michael Evans, The Times. A new strategy for Afghanistan that could lead to a British troop withdrawal from a former Taleban stronghold in northern Helmand province sparked immediate controversy yesterday. According to a senior Nato source, Western military commanders in Afghanistan are considering a radical shift in policy that would see British and US forces conduct a tactical pull-out from most of northern Helmand, including the town of Musa Qala. The source said that the plan to withdraw from northern Helmand would be considered if proposed reinforcements, currently being examined by President Obama, were not approved. General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Kabul, has asked for 40,000 more troops but President Obama has yet to make a decision. British military sources said, however, that a withdrawal from Musa Qala would be viewed as a defeat and could not be countenanced. They said it would also be a betrayal of the governor of the district, who risked his life to take a stand against the insurgents. Mullah Abdul Salaam, a former Taleban commander, switched sides to become district governor of Musa Qala only hours before British troops from 52 Brigade and Afghan soldiers retook the town from insurgent control in December 2007. British troops had withdrawn from Musa Qala in 2006 after a “deal” with the local tribal elders, but the Taleban seized control until the arrival of 52 Brigade.

Afghanistan: Marines Bring Some Calm in Helmand - Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times. When 500 US Marines descended on this Taliban stronghold overnight, Afghan civilians were immediately suspicious about the intentions of the heavily armed Americans. One question dominated all others: How long will the Americans stay? Five months later, there is still no clear answer. "The No. 1 question the Marines get is: 'When are you going home?' " said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, an Iraq combat veteran and now the top Marine in Afghanistan. "They can't believe we're staying." Three battalions landed 4,500 troops in Helmand province in the early hours of July 2, the largest airborne assault since Vietnam. But the long-term US commitment to Helmand is unclear, as President Obama and Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, continue to reevaluate US strategy. One issue is whether US forces should be massed more closely to large population centers, including Kabul, the capital, which could mean depleting the forces in rural regions like Helmand. In mid-June about 200 Marines arrived here to relieve a beleaguered British platoon. Days later, 500 more arrived in helicopters to establish a central base, called Geronimo, and then smaller ones, including Cherokee here in Nawa. After 10 days of intense fighting, the Marines pushed Taliban fighters out of several small villages. The troops fanned out and announced to startled villagers that they had arrived to protect the population from the Taliban. But a whisper campaign, which Marines blame on the Taliban, suggested that the Americans would leave as soon as President Hamid Karzai was reelected. The message was clear: Anyone who cooperates with the Americans is marked for death.

Is it Time to Pull Out of Afghanistan? - Christina Lamb, The Times. After another bloody week in Afghanistan I stood in the Field of Remembrance by Westminster Abbey and wondered if the war was worth it. The 60,000 small wooden crosses sent in by the public, each pinned with a red poppy representing the blood of the fallen, tell of a nation always willing to make sacrifices. This year a record number were sent in and, for the first time, there is a section marked Current Conflicts. Among the crowds gathering on Friday morning to pay their respects after news of a seventh soldier killed in Helmand in seven days, few passed without wiping away a tear. Everyone seemed headed for the section marked War in Afghanistan. There each cross carries a passport photograph, 229 young men and one woman, 93 of whom died this year. To me, having covered the war for its eight years, some of the names were familiar, guys with whom I had shared a joke or come under Taliban fire. To their families they were beloved husbands, fathers, daughter and sons - many just 18 years old. It seemed a terrible irony that the symbol of the fallen - a poppy - should be partly what is fuelling and funding this deadly war. As Big Ben struck 12 o’clock, I watched a young woman kneel and weep. “She lost her boyfriend in Sangin,” said her friend standing nearby. “Isn’t that enough now?”

Army Wants to Retreat in Afghanistan - Christina Lamb, Jonathan Oliver and Stephen Grey, The Times. Army chiefs are drawing up plans to withdraw British troops from outlying bases in Afghanistan. In what would be a significant change of strategy against the growing Taliban insurgency, they are considering abandoning several bases including Musa Qala, the scene of bloody battles that claimed 15 British lives. Army forces would attempt to hold only the larger towns in Helmand province. It is understood the new “retrenchment” strategy is backed by the head of the army, General Sir David Richards. Gordon Brown has yet to take a final decision, however. Ministers are concerned the new strategy would be branded defeatist. Quitting Musa Qala risks provoking a backlash from the families of soldiers who died there. The town was captured in 2007 by the Taliban after British troops withdrew and retaken by NATO forces in a costly operation later that year. A senior British commander said: “The new strategy will have to be handled sensitively. But we can’t do everything, everywhere. We must concentrate our efforts in a few geographical areas. We have to select specific areas to hold and then do the job properly.” The retrenchment plan comes after a week when the former Middle East minister Kim Howells sparked a political debate by demanding the total withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan.

Armed Forces Reputation is at Risk in Afghanistan, MoD Chiefs Warn - Michael Evans and Philip Webster, The Times. The long-term future and reputation of Britain’s Armed Forces is at risk unless progress is made in Afghanistan, the two most senior officials at the Ministry of Defence warn in an internal document seen by The Times. The pronouncement by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and Sir Bill Jeffrey, the Permanent Secretary, leaves no room for the possibility of early withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Planning within Defence should be based on the assumption of a rolling three-year military commitment to Afghanistan, reviewed annually,” they say in a jointly signed document circulated as guidance to MoD staff preparing for next year’s defence review. Their unequivocal statement of commitment appeared out of step with a more conditional speech on Afghanistan given by Gordon Brown yesterday. He was accused by the Opposition of sending out mixed messages and making empty threats after warning President Karzai, the Afghan leader, that he was not prepared to put the lives of soldiers “in harm’s way” for a government that did not stand up to corruption. Mr Brown emphasised the importance of keeping the international alliance together in Afghanistan but then said: “We will succeed or fail together.” While insisting that British troops must stay, he said he had told President Karzai that he would forfeit the right to international support if he failed to root out corruption and improve his governance of the country.

Afghanistan Rejects UN Criticism of Karzai - Voice of America. Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry has rejected comments from the top UN official in the country warning President Hamid Karzai to combat corruption or risk losing international support. A Foreign Ministry statement issued Saturday says UN special representative Kai Eide "exceeded his authority as a representative of an impartial international organization." On Thursday, Eide said the Afghan government risks support by allowing - in his words - "warlords and power-brokers" to "play their own games." The Afghan Foreign Ministry defended the Karzai administration, saying it has made combatting corruption one of the "pre-conditions for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan." The ministry said similar comments to Eide's from the international community in recent days violate "respect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued one of the strongest warnings to Mr. Karzai Friday, saying British military support depends on the Afghan leader's ability to combat corruption. The UN Security Council Friday called on Mr. Karzai to promote good governance and to improve security.

Afghanistan Government Says Foreign Officials are Interfering - Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times. President Hamid Karzai's government lashed out Saturday at his foreign critics, accusing a top UN official and other international figures of interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs. The Foreign Ministry took issue with United Nations Special Representative Kai Eide, who recently issued a list of reforms that he said he expected Karzai to make. Such comments "exceeded international norms" and "violated respect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty," the ministry said in a statement. In an incident that could exacerbate tensions between Karzai's government and the West, international and Afghan forces Saturday were trying to determine whether a NATO airstrike in the northwest killed eight Afghans and injured 22 people, including five US troops. The casualties, most of them Afghan soldiers and policemen, occurred during a joint search for two US paratroopers missing since Wednesday. At a news conference Thursday, Eide warned Karzai that he risked losing the support of international donors and troops if he did not cleanse his government of corruption and warlords.

Pakistan Blast Kills Anti-Taliban Mayor - Sabrina Tavernese. New York Times. A mayor who publicly opposed the Taliban was killed in a suicide bombing in a cattle market near the northern city of Peshawar on Sunday, officials said, in what appeared to be an attempt to curtail grass-roots opposition to the militant group. A Taliban spokesman, reached by telephone from Peshawar, said the group claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in the village of Mattani and killed 12 people, including the mayor, Abdul Malik, according to the head of the Peshawar Police Department, Liaqat Khan. On Monday, a suicide bomber killed three people, including a police constable, and wounded five others in Peshawar, The Associated Press reported. No group immediately claimed responsibility, according to AP. Mr. Malik was central to the resistance against the Taliban in the area, and his death was a blow to government efforts to fight the militants. He raised a militia to keep the Taliban out of his district, Adazai, which is close to areas where the Taliban dominate. “It’s a big loss,” said a police official in the area. “He was really a linchpin in resisting the spread of Taliban in the area; he was a very important figure,” added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

Suicide Bombing Kills 12 in Pakistani Marketplace - Riaz Khan, Associated Press. A suicide bomber set off a blast Sunday in a northwest Pakistan market crowded with shoppers ahead of a Muslim holiday, killing 12 people, including a mayor who once supported but turned against the Taliban, officials said. In the heavily guarded capital, Islamabad, police fatally shot another suicide bomber before he was able to detonate his explosives at a checkpoint, an officer said. The incidents underscore the difficulty of combating militants in Pakistan, where the Taliban have carried out a series of attacks in recent weeks. The militants say the assaults are meant to avenge a government offensive in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuary in the country. The suicide blast hit the town of Adazai, about 10 miles south of the main northwestern city of Peshawar. The bomber hit as shoppers thronged a market where goats were being sold to celebrate the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid, killing the Adazai mayor, Abdul Malik, and 11 other people, including a young girl, said Sahibzada Anis, the top official in Peshawar.

IRAQ

Iraqi Parliament Passes Election Law After Reaching Deal on Kirkuk - Ernesto Londoño and Qais Mizher, Washington Post. Iraqi lawmakers passed an election law Sunday night, overcoming a weeks-long impasse and averting a constitutional crisis that threatened to delay the US troop drawdown. The vote was held during a rare evening session preceded by intense lobbying efforts by US and UN diplomats, who had grown increasingly frustrated by the sluggish pace of negotiations and the acrimony that characterized them. "This was amazing for me," Kurdish lawmaker Ala Talabani said after leaving the session. "There was a lot of discussion, a lot of arguing, but we finally were forced to listen to each other. It's a nice feeling - that we're on the path of real democracy." To address the most contentious issue, Kurdish and Arab lawmakers agreed that votes cast in the disputed province of Kirkuk would be examined closely for months after the election. The yearlong review period was established to determine how dramatically the influx of Kurds to Kirkuk since the US-led 2003 invasion has altered the province's demographics.

Iraq Passes Crucial Election Law - Timothy Williams and Sa'ad Izzi, New York Times. After weeks of political stalemate, Iraq approved a law on Sunday to administer a critical national election in January, a significant milestone for its fragile democracy and a step that will allow the rapid withdrawal of American combat forces early next year. The election, only the second national vote since the fall of Saddam Hussein, will be a crucial step toward popular sovereignty and stability in Iraq. But the election law had been stymied by a political battle over the northern province of Kirkuk, claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, each of whom hoped electoral power would give them control of the region’s oil wealth. The compromise reached Sunday, which satisfied all three groups, was hailed by Iraqi and American leaders as a triumph for Iraq’s emerging democracy and a demonstration of Parliament’s ability to resolve sticky sectarian disputes for the national benefit. “Accomplishing this law is not a victory for anyone in particular, but a victory for the entire Iraqi people,” said Faryad Raundozi, a member of Parliament’s Kurdish Alliance. The United States had said that a delay of the election could set back the scheduled withdrawal of American combat troops.

Iraq Passes Key Election Law and Prepares for January Vote - Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal. Iraqi lawmakers passed a long-stalled election law late Sunday, reaching a last-minute compromise in negotiations that dragged out most of last week and threatened the timing of next year's parliamentary polls. Lawmakers agreed Sunday on the key sticking point - how the vote will be held in the oil-rich area of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, which is claimed by Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. "We didn't get everything we wanted, but at least it's done now," said Fryad Rawandoozi, spokesman for the Kurdish bloc. Despite the eleventh-hour agreement, Iraq's election commission said Sunday that it still didn't have enough time to prepare for the January 2010 vote. The commission can't delay the poll unilaterally, however, and Parliament's agreement appears to have put the election back on track. In the agreement hammered out over Kirkuk, eligible voters will be determined by 2009 voter-registration records, a condition supported by the Kurds. But a technical committee will be set up to review the votes. If there are a certain number of irregularities, the elections will be repeated in a year, a condition pushed by the Arabs and Turkmen. The Kirkuk issue for weeks had prevented lawmakers from agreeing to legislation that would govern how the national elections will be held. Many Kurds who had been kicked out of Kirkuk under the Saddam Hussein regime returned after the US-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq Parliament Passes Election Law - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. Iraq's bickering politicians finally agreed on a new election law Sunday, paving the way for crucial national balloting to take place in January and for the drawdown of US troops to proceed as scheduled. Parliament's passage of the law came so late that the election cannot be held as had been planned on Jan. 16, said US Ambassador Christopher Hill, and will probably be moved to Jan. 23. But that is within the January deadline mandated by Iraq's Constitution, and Hill said the short delay would make no difference to the US military's plans to bring all combat troops home by the end of August. "What is significant about the date ... in January is that the troops can be drawn down on schedule," Hill told reporters in a conference call after the vote in Iraq's parliament. "We can achieve the January time frame and the responsible drawdown as expected." The protracted deadlock over the new law had raised concerns about the stability of Iraq's fledgling democracy, and the ability of Iraqi politicians to deal with the many unresolved issues that may still confront them once US combat troops have gone, including the thorny issue of the contested oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which proved the biggest obstacle to the new law. In Washington, President Obama hailed the agreement as "an important milestone" for Iraq.

IRAN

Iran Is Said to Ignore Effort to Salvage a Nuclear Deal - David E. Sanger, New York Times. The Obama administration, attempting to salvage a faltering nuclear deal with Iran, has told Iran’s leaders in back-channel messages that it is willing to allow the country to send its stockpile of enriched uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey, for temporary safekeeping, according to administration officials and diplomats involved in the exchanges. But the overtures, made through the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past two weeks, have all been ignored, the officials said. Instead, they said, the Iranians have revived an old counterproposal: that international arms inspectors take custody of much of Iran’s fuel, but keep it on Kish, a Persian Gulf resort island that is part of Iran. A senior Obama administration official said that proposal had been rejected because leaving the nuclear material on Iranian territory would allow for the possibility that the Iranians could evict the international inspectors at any moment. That happened in North Korea in 2003, and within months the country had converted its fuel into the material for several nuclear weapons. The intermediary in the exchanges between Washington and Tehran has been Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the energy agency. He confirmed some of the proposals - including one to send Iran’s fuel to Turkey, which has nurtured close relations with Iran - in interviews in New York late last week.

Iran May Call for a Nuclear Fuel Swap, Iranian TV Reports - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. state-owned Iranian television station quoted unnamed diplomats Sunday as saying Iran, in a possible compromise to a UN-backed proposal, is willing to send about 1,800 pounds of its enriched uranium abroad to be exchanged for fuel for a medical reactor. The original proposal, backed by the Obama administration, had called for Iran to send abroad about 2,600 pounds, or 70% of its nuclear material supply, by year's end, temporarily lowering Iran's capacity to build a nuclear bomb and creating the diplomatic breathing room for a possible broader deal. Although Iran maintains that its nuclear development program is for civilian purposes only, Western nations believe the Islamic Republic is seeking to build nuclear weapons. Diplomats looking for a way out of a years-long impasse over the nuclear program weeks ago proposed a deal in which Iran would give up the bulk of its refined uranium to be further refined in Russia and France for the Tehran medical reactor. The report Sunday on the Press TV website said Iran instead sought a "two-staged, simultaneous exchange" of about 1,800 pounds of its enriched uranium for 265 pounds of medical reactor uranium plates. No other source confirmed such an Iranian counteroffer.

Iran's 'Great Satan' Addiction - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. The Iranians have a word they use to describe a political impasse. They speak of it as a bombast, which means a dead-end street, or a knot that can't be untied. That's a good description of the deadlocked debate in Tehran over the nuclear issue. It has been more than a month since what was touted as a breakthrough meeting with the Iranians in Geneva over their nuclear program. But the Iranians now seem to be backpedaling -- disavowing the tentative agreement that their own negotiators had signaled they supported. "The feeling now is that the Iranians are unable to decide," says a senior European diplomat involved in the talks. Abbas Milani, a Stanford professor who closely follows events in Iran, agrees: "They clearly want to back out of the deal." It's a measure of the political turmoil in Tehran that the chief proponent of engagement with the United States over the past month has been the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has been attacked for his supposed willingness to make concessions to the West, including by some of the "green movement" reformers who defied him in the June presidential election.

Obama's Unlearned Lesson - Oliver North, Washington Times opinion. Thirty years ago last week, a group of Iranian "students" shouting "death to America" stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking nearly 100 hostages - among them 65 Americans. Though foreign national employees and some Americans were released within a few weeks, the remaining 52 were held for 444 days. For the American people, it was an introduction to militant Islam. For President Carter, intent on "engaging" the radical regime that had replaced Shah Reza Pahlavi, it was a disaster. The Obama administration appears to have missed the lessons of that debacle. Though Mr. Carter described the embassy takeover as "a disappointing development" and "surprising," it shouldn't have been. Strikes, mass demonstrations and student protests throughout Iran began early in 1978. In September, the shah responded by declaring martial law. It didn't help. On Jan. 16, 1979, the shah, seriously ill with cancer, fled and sought refuge in Morocco, Mexico and the United States. Two weeks later, on Feb. 1, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to be greeted by more than 5 million devotees lining the streets of Tehran. Ten days later, he proclaimed himself Iran's supreme leader.

UNITED STATES

Authorities Scrutinize Links Between Fort Hood Suspect, Imam Said to Back al-Qaeda - Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson, Washington Post. Federal investigators are examining possible links between Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal M. Hasan and an American-born imam who US authorities say has become a supporter and leading promoter of al-Qaeda since leaving a Northern Virginia mosque, officials said. Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church in 2001, when its spiritual leader was Anwar al-Aulaqi, a figure who crossed paths with al-Qaeda associates, including two Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, one senior US official said. Since Aulaqi left in 2002 and settled in Yemen, his lectures promoting the strategies of an al-Qaeda military leader have shown up in computer files of suspects in terrorism cases in the United States, Canada and Britain, officials said. It is not clear whether Hasan knew the preacher well then or only later through his lectures on the Internet. A federal law enforcement official said Sunday that investigators' operating theory remains that Hasan acted alone and without provocation or exhortation from an overseas person. However, new leads are being pursued based on information gleaned from a methodical review by investigators of Hasan's computer and his multiple e-mail accounts. Those include visits to Web sites espousing radical Islamist ideas, another senior official said.

Fort Hood Gunman Gave Signals Before His Rampage - James C. McKinley Jr. and James Dao, New York Times. It was still dark on Thursday when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan left his aging apartment complex to attend 6 a.m. prayers at the brick mosque near Fort Hood. Afterward, he said goodbye to his friends there and asked forgiveness from one man for any past offenses. “I’m going traveling,” he told a fellow worshiper, giving him a hug. “I won’t be here tomorrow.” Six hours later, Major Hasan walked into a processing center at Fort Hood where soldiers get medical attention before being sent overseas. At first, he sat quietly at an empty table, said two congressmen briefed on the investigation. Then, witnesses say, he bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. “Allahu akbar,” he said - “God is great.” And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people. But relatives and acquaintances say tensions that led to the rampage had been building for a long time. Investigators say Major Hasan bought the gun used in the massacre last summer, days after arriving at Fort Hood. In recent years, he had grown more and more vocal about his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tortured over reconciling his military duties with his religion. He tried to get out of the Army, relatives said, and apparently believed it to be impossible, though experts say he was probably given inadequate advice.

Complications Grow for Muslims Serving Nation - Andrea Elliot, New York Times. Abdi Akgun joined the Marines in August of 2000, fresh out of high school and eager to serve his country. As a Muslim, the attacks of Sept. 11 only steeled his resolve to fight terrorism. But two years later, when Mr. Akgun was deployed to Iraq with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the thought of confronting Muslims in battle gave him pause. He was haunted by the possibility that he might end up killing innocent civilians. “It’s kind of like the Civil War, where brothers fought each other across the Mason-Dixon line,” Mr. Akgun, 28, of Lindenhurst, NY, who returned from Iraq without ever pulling the trigger. “I don’t want to stain my faith, I don’t want to stain my fellow Muslims, and I also don’t want to stain my country’s flag.” Thousands of Muslims have served in the United States military - a legacy that some trace to the First World War. But in the years since Sept. 11, 2001, as the United States has become mired in two wars on Muslim lands, the service of Muslim-Americans is more necessary and more complicated than ever before. In the aftermath of the shootings at Fort Hood on Thursday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of the Army, a psychiatrist, many Muslim soldiers and their commanders say they fear that the relationship between the military and its Muslim service members will only grow more difficult.

Fort Hood Shooting: Texas Army Killer Linked to September 11 Terrorists - Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius, Daily Telegraph. Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001. Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year. The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations. Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree. As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California. Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Dark Motives of Army Base Killer - Tony Allen-Mills and Alex Hannaford, The Times. A month after his arrival in Texas in July, Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into Guns Galore, a weapons shop near the sprawling Fort Hood military base, and spent $1,000 on a high-powered, Belgian-made semi-automatic pistol that is said by its manufacturer to be “lightweight and easily concealable ... It will defeat the enemy in all close combat situations”. It was an unusual purchase for an army psychiatrist who had never shown any interest in guns and who had spent almost all his military career learning how to deal with the consequences of gun violence at the US Army’s Walter Reed medical centre in Washington. Army investigators now believe that Hasan’s 5.7-calibre FN Herstal tactical pistol was the only gun he fired in the horrific seven-minute rampage that killed 13 people and injured at least 30 others at the Fort Hood base last Thursday. In army offices crowded with hundreds of soldiers, Hasan, a 39-year-old American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, was somehow able to fire at least 100 times, pausing repeatedly to reload 20-round magazines, before he was shot by military police. He was carrying another pistol, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, but does not appear to have used it. At one point, said Specialist Eliot Valdez, who witnessed the aftermath of the assault, Hasan was shooting the occupants of a crowded room like “fish in a barrel ... It was too easy, you can close your eyes and hit eight people”.

Army Chief Wary of Backlash Against Muslim Soldiers - Sean Lengell, Washington Times. The Army chief of staff said Sunday that he is concerned that speculation about the Muslim faith and the motives of the accused Fort Hood gunman could spark retaliation against Muslin soldiers and hurt diversity within the branch's ranks. "I think that's something else we need to be very careful about, and I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," said Gen. George W. Casey Jr. on ABC's "This Week." Gen. Casey said he has instructed his commanders to be on the lookout for that reaction to the killings at the Texas post. The general said that while what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, "I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here." "And it's not just about Muslims," he said. "We have a very diverse Army. We have a very diverse society. And that gives us all strength. So again, we need to be very careful with that." He said he doesn't believe there is discrimination against the 3,000 Muslims who serve as active Guard and reserve soldiers.

Lieberman Vows Probe of Hood Rampage - Sean Lengell, Washington Times. Sen. Joe Lieberman plans to start a congressional investigation into Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, saying that if initial reports hold true, it would be "the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11." Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim Army psychiatrist, is accused of fatally shooting 13 people and wounding 31 others at the Texas military base. Authorities say he was shot in an exchange of gunfire during the attack and remained hospitalized in critical but stable condition Sunday night. "I want to say very quickly we don't know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," said Mr. Lieberman, Connecticut independent. Maj. Hasan, a US-born Muslim of Palestinian heritage, reportedly had voiced dismay over US wars in Islamic countries and said the nation's struggle against terrorist threats was a "war on Muslims." He also was said to be distraught that he was about to be deployed. His family says he was a target of prejudice and harassment over his Islamic faith. Mr. Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he will work with the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, to investigate the shooter's motives.

Too Scared to Recognize Terrorism - Washington Times editorial. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was declared "not a terrorist" before the facts were out - even before officials were sure whether the attacker was alive or dead. Failing to honestly name a terrorist attack despite the evidence is as destructive and dishonest as leaping to call an attack terrorism without the facts to support that. Apparently, the claim was based largely on the fact that Maj. Hasan appears to have been a lone gunman. However, terrorism is defined not by the number of people involved, but by the motivations and intentions of the attacker. If reports about him are true, Maj. Hasan clearly was a terrorist. He reportedly was upset about the activities of the United States in the Middle East and purportedly had made postings about suicide attacks on jihadist forums. He told an associate that "maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor"; he was videotaped on the morning of the attack wearing traditional white clothing in the manner of someone about to martyr himself. The same day, he divested himself of belongings and handed out Korans, and he shouted the battle cry of the jihadists, "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire. If these reports are true, this was not just terrorism; it was Islamic jihadist terrorism.

The Hole at the Heart of Our Strategy - Mark Steyn, National Review opinion. Thirteen dead and 31 wounded would be a bad day for the US military in Afghanistan, and a great victory for the Taliban. When it happens in Texas, in the heart of the biggest military base in the nation, at a processing center for soldiers either returning from or deploying to combat overseas, it is not merely a “tragedy” (as too many people called it) but a glimpse of a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of what we have called, since 9/11, the “War on Terror.” Brave soldiers trained to hunt down and kill America’s enemy abroad were killed in the safety and security of home by, in essence, the same enemy - a man who believes in and supports everything the enemy does. And he’s a US Army major. And his superior officers and other authorities knew about his beliefs but seemed to think it was just a bit of harmless multicultural diversity - as if believing that “the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor” (i.e., his fellow American soldiers) and writing Internet paeans to the “noble” “heroism” of suicide bombers and, indeed, objectively supporting the other side in an active war is to be regarded as just some kind of alternative lifestyle that adds to the general vibrancy of the base.

UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY

Listen to the Dissidents - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post opinion. Barack Obama's extended hand was whacked across the knuckles by the leaders of Iran, Syria and assorted other thuggeries last week. But the Obama administration did manage a good demonstration in Burma of how its brand of engagement can and should work. Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top Asia official, traveled to the isolated military dictatorship to talk with its corrupt junta. But Campbell also insisted on having a highly visible meeting with the leader of the country's democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi, and then publicly called on her persecutors to grant her party more freedoms. This is the balance that has been missing in Obama's outreach to other authoritarian states. Demonstrators on the streets of Tehran underlined the president's missing link Wednesday by chanting: "Obama, Obama - either you're with them or you're with us," as Iranian police beat them, according to news accounts. Obama and his advisers need to take the dissidents' message to heart. The dissident - a hero and catalyst for enormous change in the Soviet empire, China, the Philippines and elsewhere only two decades ago - has become a largely neglected and absent figure in this administration's diplomacy. Media coverage of political protest globally also seems to have waned since the end of the Cold War.

UNITED STATES NAVY

USS New York Receives Official Commission - Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service. A new Navy ship named in honor of the courage displayed by New York City’s residents during and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks received its official commission today. The USS New York recalls “the searing memories of Sept. 11” as well as “the bravery of the rescuers, the resolve of the survivors, the compassion of this city and the patriotism of this great country,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during the ship’s commissioning ceremony at New York City harbor. Clinton was a member of the US Senate representing New York state during 9/11. Part of the bow, or front, of the new ship, Clinton said, is constructed of 7.5 tons of melted-down steel taken from the wreckage of the World Trade Center’s twin towers that were destroyed during the terrorist attacks. The motto of the USS New York, Clinton said, is “Strength Forged through Sacrifice: Never Forget.” No one “will ever forget the image of twisted girders and shattered beams looming above the smoldering pile” of wreckage, Clinton said. The USS New York is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship. It was christened March 1 in a New Orleans’ shipyard by Dotty England, the ship’s sponsor and wife of former Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. The USS New York and its crew, Clinton said, will join in the fight against terrorism and extremism and also perform humanitarian missions worldwide. The new ship’s first commander is Navy Cmdr. F. Curtis Jones, a native of Binghamton, NY The vessel has a crew of more than 350 sailors and can transport a landing force of 800 Marines and their equipment. Clinton was accompanied at the ceremony by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus; Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations; Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James T. Conway; and other senior officials.

AFRICA

China Pledges $10 Billion to Africa - Michael Wines, New York Times. China offered African governments a multibillion-dollar package of financial and technical assistance on Sunday, stepping up a courtship that already has gained Beijing wide access to oil and minerals across perhaps the most resource-rich continent in the world. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to grant African countries $10 billion in low-interest development loans over the next three years, to establish a $1 billion loan program for small and medium-size businesses, and to forgive the remaining debt on certain interest-free loans that China previously granted less-developed African nations. Mr. Wen made the pledge in an address to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, held in the Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheik. The $10 billion in new loans is double the amount China pledged at the last meeting in 2006. The debt forgiveness continues a series of annual loan cancellations that extends to 2006. Mr. Wen told officials of the 49 African nations in attendance that this year’s session “represents a new stage of development in relations with Africa.” Besides the financial assistance, Mr. Wen also promised to form a partnership to address climate change in Africa, including the building of 100 clean-energy projects across the continent. Beijing will also remove tariffs on most exports to China from the least-developed African nations that do not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and sponsor an array of other programs in health, education, culture and agriculture.

China Pledges $10 Billion in Low-cost Loans to Africa - Barney Jopson and Jamil Anderlini, Washington Post. Wen Jiabao, China's premier, has pledged $10 billion in new low-cost loans to Africa over the next three years and has defended his country's engagement on the continent against accusations that it is "plundering" the region's oil and minerals. Wen made the pledge Sunday at a China-Africa summit here, at which he also urged the United States to keep its deficit to an "appropriate size" to ensure the "basic stability" of the dollar. China is the biggest holder of US government debt, and Wen's comments reinforce similar ones made in March, when he expressed concern that Washington's deficit could erode the value of China's US dollar assets. The loan pledge for Africa was double a $5 billion commitment made in 2006. At the summit, delegates on both sides stressed that their ties go beyond the Chinese acquisition of raw materials. Trade between China and Africa jumped 45 percent, to $107 billion, in 2008, a tenfold increase since 2000, and the new loans are likely to sustain the expansion.

UN Running Out of Food Aid for Somalia - Ariel David, Associated Press. The United Nations says it is running out of food for millions of starving Somalis, in part because the United States is delaying aid amid fears it could be intercepted by militants linked to al-Qaeda. Last month, the UN World Food Program began cutting rations by up to half for some people in the lawless, impoverished East African nation, and it will run out of supplies in December, the Rome-based agency said Saturday. "WFP's food assistance supply line to Somalia is effectively broken," said Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the agency in Nairobi. "The pipeline break is partly because [the US government] has delayed US assistance to Somalia." The US State Department confirmed it had concerns that militants could get their hands on humanitarian assistance and had suspended food shipments.

AMERICAS

Hugo Chavez Tells Venezuela Troops to 'Prepare for War' with Colombia - The Times. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez yesterday ordered the country’s military to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia, saying soldiers should be ready if the United States attempts to provoke a war between the South American neighbours. Mr Chavez said Venezuela could end up going to war with Colombia as tensions between them rise, and he warned that if a conflict broke out “it could extend throughout the whole continent”. “The best way to avoid war is preparing for it,” Mr Chavez told military officers during his weekly television and radio programme. Venezuela's socialist leader has also cited a recent deal between Bogota and Washington giving US troops greater access to military bases as a threat to regional stability. The Government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe rejected what it called “threats of war from Venezuela's government”, saying that it would protest at Mr Chavez's comments to the Organization of American States and the UN Security Council.

Chávez's Next Target: El Salvador - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion. Fidel Castro learned a lot from Chilean President Salvador Allende's failed power grab in 1973. And he used the lessons of that bitter defeat to coach Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to dictatorship under the guise of democracy more than 25 years later. Now Latin America's revolutionaries may be experiencing another setback and this time they can't claim that a military coup removed their would-be dictator. Instead, former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was arrested by order of the Supreme Court and deposed by Congress. And despite enormous international pressure, the Honduran democracy has so far defended its rule of law. Yet far from giving up, Castro protégés are already using what they learned in Tegucigalpa in El Salvador. Central America's most promising free-market democracy is now fighting for its life. Allende got the boot from his military because he had been trampling the constitution. The Supreme Court, the Bar Association and the Medical Association all denounced his disregard for the rule of law. According to James R. Whelan, author of a history of Chile titled "Out of the Ashes," the lower house of its Congress passed a resolution on Aug. 22, 1973, that "said bluntly that it was the responsibility of the military . ... 'to put an immediate end' to lawlessness and 'channel government action along legal paths . ...'" Less than a month later, the military complied. The lesson from Chile for the hard left was that success depended on first getting control of the institutions with the power to check an aspiring tyrant. Now the leadership of El Salvador's FMLN party, composed of many former guerrillas, is attempting just that.

A New Mosque in Nicaragua Fires Up the Rumor Mill - Steve Stecklow, Wall Street Journal. With just 300 or so Muslims in all of Nicaragua, it became an instant mystery here when a big new mosque suddenly seemed to spring up recently in a residential neighborhood. Like, who paid for it? The ever-present Managua rumor mill quickly turned to the government of Iran. Its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Muslim, and Nicaragua's leftist leader, Daniel Ortega, a Catholic, say they share a revolutionary kinship. As part of a grandiose effort to show that Iran is a global superpower, Mr. Ahmadinejad and his government promised in 2007 and 2008 to invest up to $1 billion in this impoverished country of 5.7 million, including a new city and deep-water port in a remote jungle on the Atlantic Coast. Never mind that local Nicaraguan officials say they haven't heard a word on the port project ever since an Iranian-led delegation was confronted 18 months ago by angry villagers. Or that virtually none of the other announced investments have materialized. The geopolitical chatter surrounding the gold-domed mosque, which opened in September after more than a year of construction, continues. "Did Iran put up the money? That's the question everyone asks," says Ismat Khatib, a native Nicaraguan lawyer and businessman who is of Palestinian descent. One Managua-based diplomat says it is believed Iran subsidized it.

Democracy Wins in Honduras - Jaime Daremblum, Weekly Standard opinion. The four-month Honduran political crisis appears to be over. Last week, Honduran officials signed an agreement to establish a provisional "unity" government and allow the Honduran Congress to determine the fate of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed as president in late June for constitutional violations. At first, some media outlets reported that the deal would automatically restore Zelaya as president, but that was inaccurate. Zelaya could be restored--but Honduran legislators will make the final call. The United States, which helped broker the accord, agreed to end sanctions against Honduras and recognize the legitimacy of its November 29 elections. This represents a major triumph for Honduran democracy. The Obama administration had previously argued that the termination of US sanctions and the acceptance of this month's Honduran elections were both contingent on Zelaya's reinstatement as president. At some point, the administration decided that Honduras should be permitted to make its own decision about the Hugo Chávez acolyte. If the Obama administration still believed that Zelaya's removal was an illegal "military coup" and an assault on democracy, it would not have endorsed an agreement that lets the Honduran Congress reject Zelaya's return to the presidency.

ASIA PACIFIC

Obama Faces a Tall Agenda on Asia Trip - Peter Nicholas and Catherine Makino, Los Angeles Times. With unemployment topping 10% and his healthcare plan still facing Senate action, President Obama has plenty to keep him busy at home. But on Thursday, he will head to Asia for more than a week, a trip that underscores the White House's conviction that a close partnership with China and other Pacific Rim nations is crucial to American interests. Obama is scheduled to stop in Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, bringing to 20 the number of nations he has visited since taking office in January. That's a record, according to the Obama administration; no other president has traveled to so many countries in his first year in office. Although the centerpiece of the trip is China, the loudest pre-journey reaction has come from Japan. On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators rallied in Okinawa and Tokyo over the future of a Marine base on the distant southern island, home to roughly half of the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan. The protesters sought to put pressure on Japan to stop construction of a new US military airfield with two runways, part of a 2006 agreement between the two nations.

New Friction and Vast Agenda Await Obama on China Trip - Ian Johnson, Wall Street Journal. When President Barack Obama arrives in Shanghai for a four-day China visit, he will be accorded all the normal pomp and circumstance: He'll mingle with top leaders and ordinary people, local media will be filled with stories, and speeches will be rife with words like "vision" and "partnership." But the greeting won't be as warm as those he has received in other parts of the world, where he frequently has been seen as a transformative figure. That is because Mr. Obama - who arrives Nov. 15 during an eight-day tour of the region - will be largely continuing previous administrations' policies on China. He will also face new friction over long-term problems, and he and his hosts will have to contend with a range of global issues that have overtaken the summit agenda. Mr. Obama follows an administration that is widely credited with success here. The Bush team - building on progress made during the Clinton administration - deepened trade, expanded exchanges and resolved conflicts peacefully. "Little Bush," as the Chinese call the 43rd US president, was widely liked.

Obama to Meet With Prime Minister of Myanmar - Associated Press. President Obama plans to meet with the prime minister of Myanmar along with other Southeast Asian leaders next Sunday, in a high-level affirmation of the new policy by Washington of engaging the military-ruled country despite its dismal human rights record. The meeting between Mr. Obama and leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will take place on the sidelines of the annual summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore, the US ambassador for Asean affairs, Scot Marciel, said Saturday. Prime Minister Thein Sein of Myanmar will attend the meeting, which marks the 32nd anniversary of Washington’s relations with Asean, said a senior Myanmar diplomat, Min Lwin. The junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, typically shuns official meetings outside the country.

Thousands of Japanese Protest US Base Plan - Isabel Reynolds, Reuters. Thousands of Japanese gathered in sweltering heat on the southern island of Okinawa on Sunday to demand that a US Marine base be moved out of the region, days ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama. The row over the re-siting of the Futenma air base threatens to stall a realignment of the 47,000 US military personnel in Japan and sour defense ties between the two countries, seen as key in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea. It could also prove a domestic headache for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose support ratings have slipped since his landslide election victory in August. "Okinawa's future is for us, the Okinawan people to decide," Ginowan mayor Yoichi Iha told a supportive crowd which spilled out of an open-air theater by the beach. "We cannot let America decide for us." Organizers put the number of protesters at 21,000.

MIDDLE EAST

Obama Hosts Netanyahu - Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal. The White House waited several days to confirm that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could meet with President Barack Obama Monday, and sought conditions first - underscoring the new depths of difficulty that Middle East peace efforts have reached in the last week. US officials said the delay, which stretched until late Sunday, stemmed from last-minute discussions aimed at gaining a more robust and public commitment to the peace track from Mr. Netanyahu. One official said the US wanted Mr. Netanyahu to express stronger support for negotiations on an independent Palestinian state at his speech Monday before the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington. "We're in the part of the process where you can't expect something for nothing," the official said. It wasn't immediately clear what Mr. Netanyahu would say on the issue. But ultimately the US agreed to schedule the meeting. The prime minister's visit comes as fears grow inside the Obama administration that its aggressive plans for promoting Mideast peace could be unraveling. Mr. Netanyahu hasn't agreed to a complete freeze of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a precursor to talks, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he wouldn't seek re-election in protest over the US failure to deliver such a commitment.

Israelis Unsure of US Support - Joshua Mitnick, Washington Times. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in the United States this week, but he might not see President Obama. Ten months into the Obama administration, persistent tension with Mr. Netanyahu has eroded the president's standing among Israelis. They are giving him low grades for his initial, unsuccessful foray into Middle East peacemaking and feel slighted that he hasn't shown them as much empathy he has shown their Arab neighbors. Though Israelis still see the United States as their most important ally and many view Mr. Obama positively, the president is nonetheless faulted by both supporters and detractors for not reaching out to the Israeli public as he publicly sparred with Mr. Netanyahu over Israel's continued expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The criticism is reflected in two recent surveys, which suggested that among Israeli Jews, only about 6 percent of respondents see Mr. Obama's Middle East policy as "pro-Israeli." Many Israelis say that Mr. Obama is perceived as taking a harsh tone with the Jewish state while trying to appease Arab public opinion.

Hezbollah Agrees to Unity Coalition - Bassem Mroue, Associated Press. Lebanon's Syrian-backed factions finally agreed on a unity government proposed by their pro-Western rivals Saturday, ending a four-month deadlock in the deeply divided country. The announcement by the opposition coalition dominated by the militant Hezbollah group came after a meeting late Friday night between the groups' leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah. Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri was informed the next day. The agreement would end a political deadlock that has threatened to send the fragile nation spiraling back into violence. Mr. Hariri has been trying to form a Cabinet since June, when his Western-backed coalition narrowly defeated Hezbollah and its allies and retained a slim majority in the 128-member legislature. Both groups agreed from the beginning on a complicated power-sharing formula that gives Mr. Hariri's coalition 15 seats in the next government and the Hezbollah-led minority 10 seats, with five other seats to be filled by President Michel Suleiman, who is seen as a neutral figure. Since then they had not been able to agree on which posts each group would take.

A Continued Political Stalemate - Mohamad Bazzi, Washington Times opinion. Five months after holding parliamentary elections, Lebanon is still without a government. The pro-Western coalition that won the vote is floundering in the morass of Lebanon's sectarian politics, and the country is once again drifting toward crisis. What is wrong with Lebanon, and why is it so hard to form a government? After the June 7 elections, a simplistic narrative emerged in the West: Because Hezbollah and its allies were defeated at the polls, the Shi'ite militant group would lose some of its luster and a pro-US political coalition would rule Lebanon. But in fact, Hezbollah remains the country's dominant military and political force. Hezbollah holds the key to both domestic and external stability: Its actions will determine whether there is another war with Israel or whether Lebanon will once again be wracked by internal conflict. The current political vacuum gives Hezbollah free rein to continue its military buildup in southern Lebanon. Saad Hariri, the Sunni leader and US-backed prime-minister-designate, has been unable to form a Cabinet - with the defection of Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt to the Hezbollah camp just the latest of Mr. Hariri's problems. But this political maneuvering is only a symptom of a much deeper problem: an antiquated power-sharing system adopted six decades ago.

Call White House, Ask for Barack - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times opinion. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play. It is obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes, with the same old tired clichés - and that no one believes any of it anymore. There is no romance, no sex, no excitement, no urgency - not even a sense of importance anymore. The only thing driving the peace process today is inertia and diplomatic habit. Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something diplomats do to stay in shape, but not because they believe anything is going to happen. And yet, as much as we, the audience, know this to be true, we can never quite abandon hope for peace in the Holy Land. It is our habit. Indeed, as I ranted about this to a Jordanian friend the other day, he said it all reminded him of an old story. “These two guys are watching a cowboy and Indian movie. And in the opening scene, an Indian is hiding behind a rock about to ambush the handsome cowboy,” he explained. “ ‘I bet that Indian is going to kill that cowboy,’ one guy says to the other. ‘Never happen,’ his friend answers. ‘The cowboy is not going to be killed in the opening scene.’ ‘I’ll bet you $10 he gets killed,’ the guy says. ‘I’ll take that bet,’ says his friend. “Sure enough, a few minutes later, the cowboy is killed and the friend pays the $10. After the movie is over the guy says to his friend, ‘Look, I have to give you back your $10. I’d actually seen this movie before. I knew what was going to happen.’ His friend answers: ‘No, you can keep the $10. I’d seen the movie, too. I just thought it would end differently this time.’ ”

SOUTH ASIA

'Nonpolitical' Visit by Dalai Lama Riles China - Muneeza Naqvi, Washington Post. Joyous Buddhist pilgrims welcomed the Dalai Lama back Sunday to the Himalayan town he first set foot in five decades ago while fleeing Chinese rule in his native Tibet - a rare trip close to his homeland that has angered Beijing. The Dalai Lama's arrival highlighted a lingering border dispute between India and China, exposed Beijing's ongoing sensitivities over Tibet, and raised questions about who would succeed him as the region's spiritual leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said last week that the trip "once again exposes the nature of the Dalai Lama as anti-China." The Dalai Lama insisted that the accusation was "baseless," and that he was seeking only to promote religious values, peace and harmony. "My visit here is nonpolitical," he said soon after his arrival Sunday morning. For the residents of Tawang, it seemed purely religious.

EVENTS

The US Military Academy’s Department of History is pleased to invite you to a West Point Symposium on the History of Irregular Warfare, 18-20 November 2009. The symposium will feature the scholarship of five cadet panel presenters with commentary by distinguished guest scholars, including: Dr. Stephen Biddle as our keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Black, Col. Robert Cassidy, Dr. Conrad Crane, Dr. George Herring, Dr. Brian Linn, and Dr. Peter Mansoor. Additionally, Dr. James Le Sueur (Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics, 2005) will present a special lecture on Algerian society since 1963. Col. Gian Gentile, a History faculty member, will participate as part of the “Visiting Scholars Panel” with Dr. Crane, Dr. Mansoor, and Col. Cassidy. (Invitation and POC Information) (History of IW Symposium Agenda)

BOOKS

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan - Doug Stanton.

Horse Soldiers tells the important story of the Special Forces soldiers who first put American boots on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, the troops, often riding on horseback, achieved several important victories against the Taliban.

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 US 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.