Gareth Porter "Under the administration's definition of the concept, combat operations will continue after August 2010, but will be defined as the secondary role of U.S. forces in Iraq. The primary role will be to "advise and assist" Iraqi forces. An offi
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Middle Eastern Affairs Colin Kahl and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Michael Corbin presented the administration plan for what they called a "transition from a military to civilian re
BENNIS: I heard one new thing, Paul, and that was President Obama's acknowledgment that this is now a trillion-dollar war in Iraq. Among those 50,000 troops are 4,500 special forces, [that] have two jobs. One is horrifying. They go around the country wit
Gareth Porter: Domestic politics dictated decision to assassinate bin Laden, not national security has protected himself now against, really, Republican efforts to portray him as weak on terrorism. He's really now in a very much stronger position polit
This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch "The Underrated Saudi Connection " (underrubrik) "The “war on terror” has failed because it did not target the jihadi movement as a whole and, above all, was not aimed at Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two countries that fostered jihadism as a creed and a movement. The U.S. did not do so because these countries were important American allies whom it did not want to offend. Saudi Arabia is an enormous market for American arms, and the Saudis have cultivated, and on occasion purchased, influential members of the American political establishment. Pakistan is a nuclear power with a population of 180 million and a military with close links to the Pentagon."