"I think that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy because we have lost the element of the goodness of American power and we have lost our moral authority,"

The two smiles said it all. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas looked as if his smile had been painfully stapled onto his face, while his rival, Hamas leader and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, beamed with satisfaction. Haniyeh had reason to be cheerful. Everything is going Hamas's way — even though it was Haniyeh who had to resign.

The right to return movement, drawing together right to return committees in refugee camps in Palestine and throughout the Arab homeland, and similar committees and organizations created among Palestinian exiles around the world - in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and North America,...

Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, are making some of their most public overtures ever to Israel and American Jews in an effort to undercut Iran's growing influence, contain violence in Iraq and Lebanon and push for a Palestinian solution.

"The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics – alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on WMD – to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?"

Once again the drums of war are roaring in Washington DC. Once again the signs and signals of a pending US/Israeli attack on yet another country, this time Iran, are heard louder than ever. The build-up to an anxiety-provoking crescendo has already started to gain momentum.

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of "buying time" for its dis aster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a "surge" of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target.

Fifteen years ago, after the first defeat of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker faced the question of how best to exploit the American victory as a means of stabilizing the Middle East.

The most important lesson about the Iraq War for reporters was perhaps the simplest one: Don't assume the White House is telling the truth. It's a lesson that many reporters seem to be forgetting now that U.S. officials are escalating their claims about Iran's role in Iraq.

Always go withâ the most recent one that came out on October 11 that was published in The Lancet by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health. That found 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq, which counts people who have died from a direct result of the US invasion and occupation.

This seems a common view among Israelis, which explains why they may look askance at George W. Bush's freedom agenda. Speaking to a visiting delegation of journalists sponsored by the pro-Israel American Israel Education Foundation (which supports the American Israel Public Affairs Committee),...

The underlying message is that if the international community takes the time to learn more about the Middle East and its people, they can demystify why there is violence and what are the needs of the people. The more knowledge people have means they can push for effective legislation that alleviates pain and suffering.

Bush's state of the union address did not describe the deplorable state of the union. The speech's importance consists of Bush's plea to Congress to please let him fool them one more time in order that he can attack Iran and start a bigger war that Congress will have to support in order to support Israel.

President Bush’s January 10, 2007, speech announced the “endgame” for Iraq. His new strategy is intended to salvage an American policy sharply undermined by rising violence in Baghdad and falling support in the United States. Bush coupled this change with a call for new military and civilian capabilities, the better to wage the War on Terror.

As has happened far too many times since 1948, Palestinian suffering – the central reality of the Middle East crisis – goes largely ignored by the American “mainstream”, as the conflict is transmogrified from its proper geographical setting onto the minus-land of domestic politics.

While the Iraqis were busy counting their death toll of more than 650,000 since March 2003, the United Nations busy counting their dead of more than 34,000 in 2006 only, the Pentagon counting more than 3,070 American deaths and the U.S. treasury counting more than $600 billion of taxpayer money spent so far in Iraq,...

The Constitution states that only Congress has the power to declare war. However, since World War II, the United States has been involved in many major conflicts without resorting to a war declaration. This led to some ambiguity over the extent to which the president is allowed to conduct military action....

In an Israeli air force bunker in Tel Aviv, near the concert hall for the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, Major General Eliezer Shkedi might one day conduct operations of a perilous kind. Should the order come from the Israeli prime minister, it will be Shkedi’s job as air force commander to orchestrate a tactical nuclear strike on Iran.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pledging deeper engagement in the Middle East peace process, met today with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, who rejected suggestions for establishing a temporary state within provisional borders and pledged...

I call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us. You should distinguish between the decision-makers and the people. Just hate the action. Even those whose actions deserve to be fought--do not hate them as human beings.

"Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran," writes Tira. Thus, Israel and its U.S. lobbying arm "must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran."

George W. Bush’s foreign policy team took office with two priorities in mind: to eliminate potential challenges to American power, and make the Middle East safe for Israel. The Bush strategists had made their intentions clear in books and position papers long before the 2000 elections.

Americans owe a debt to former President Jimmy Carter for speaking long hidden but vital truths. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid breaks the taboo barring criticism in the United States of Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. Our government's tacit acceptance of Israel's unfair policies causes global hostility against us.

Here they go again. After spending more than three years, the lives of nearly 3,000 American soldiers, and well over $300 billion in Iraq, the coalition of neoconservatives and liberal interventionists who brought America into the quagmire now tell us that the problem was not with having the wrong war...

George Bush has lost all his political capital. The mid-term election glaringly revealed that. But Bush fantasizes that he is a torchbearer for delivering democracy and freedom to the Middle East. Is that the delusion? Or is that the public relations strategy to continuing the hope to control Iraqi oil?...

We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. We now are aware of the fact that Al-Qaeda had no base in Iraq as long as Saddam was president. He never would have accepted having anyone share his power with him. All the excuses that we were given to go to war against Iraq were false.

As was widely expected the Iraq Study Group advised the Bush Administration to engage with Iran on the issue of Iraq. But while this key recommendation is likely to dominate the media and academic discourse in Washington DC over the next few months, it is unlikely ever to amount to much.

Washington arrogantly tells us democracy is the only way forward for this region in the spite of the fact the Arab world has functioned without it for thousands of years, producing remarkable thinkers and accomplishments in the fields of literature, mathematics, philosophy and science.

Iran’s nuclear program has moved forward at a snail’s pace; after all, its clandestine work began 19 years ago. The basic reason is that the world community has actually been pretty good at blocking Iran’s access to dangerous nuclear technology.