Obama’s Canada Visit Spotlights NAFTA
President Barack Obama made his first visit international trip as president on February 19, as he made a seven-hour visit to Canada’s capital city of Ottawa. The U.S. president was honored...
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U.S. Commander Predicts Long Afghanistan Stay
Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, predicted on February 18 that the additional 17,000 U.S. troops scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan will remain there for...
Obama’s Afghan Problem
President Barack Obama decided February 16 to send an additional 17,000 U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan, as part of his campaign promise to increase U.S. presence in that troubled nation. The decision...
Pakistan Agrees to Taliban Haven in Swat Valley
The government of Pakistan announced on February 16 that it had agreed to accept a system of strict Islamic law, or sharia, in the Malakand region of Pakistan's North West Frontier...
Talking With Iran’s Terror Regime
As Iran celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Khomeini Revolution and the American hostage crisis, U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were both talking about talking — with...
Baghdad-Tehran Axis Grows
Less than two weeks after Iraq’s provincial elections, the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki welcomed a large high-level delegation from Iran. Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki led the delegation,...
Iraq Elections No Victory for U.S.
Provincial council elections in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces on January 31 strengthened Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, a militant Shia Islamic group, while also bringing many Sunnis who had...
Change Comes to Bolivia
Change is being implemented throughout the month of February in the latest South American country to lurch leftward. Voters in Bolivia approved a new constitution late last month that in the...
Satellites Collide: First Traffic Accident in Space
Like most members of the Baby Boomer generation who grew up watching movies about space exploration and following our nation's quest to put a man on the Moon, this writer entered...
Foreign Policy Insider Holbrooke Visits Pakistan
President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, who arrived in Pakistan on February 9, met the next day with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza...
Biden: Global Cop Through “Alliances”
Vice President Joseph Biden told attendees of the 45th annual Munich Security Conference that President Obama plans to have the United States continue its role as global cop under “strong partnerships.”...
Russia’s Puzzling Role in Afghan Theater
On February 5, we reported about the fate of the U.S. air base at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, which has played a key role in supplying the heavily American NATO forces in the...
Fate of U.S. Base in Kyrgyzstan Uncertain
Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said on February 3 that his government had decided to shut down the U.S. air base at Manas. Manas air base has been the primary refueling and...
First Iranian-produced Satellite Launched
Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, announced on February 3 that on the previous day the Islamic nation had launched its first domestically produced satellite. (Although in October 2005, Iran's first satellite,...
Gaza Cease-fire Continues to Break
For the second time in two days, the cease-fire between the Hamas Palestinian terrorist faction that controls Gaza and neighboring Israel was broken on February 2. On the previous day, Israeli...