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Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Iraq parliament’s Committee on Security and Defense voted in favor of the Iraqi-US security agreement. That committee is headed by Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organization (the paramilitary wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq). Badr’s willingness to vote for the agreement is a clear sign […]

McClatchy has published an English translation of the draft security agreement between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration. Leila Fadel of McClatchy’s reads the agreement as calling for all US troops to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011: ‘ If Iraq’s parliament endorses the agreement, in six weeks American forces would […]

Vice President: n. Political chief in charge of committing vice. The official can fulfill his public duties by committing a wide range of sins or crimes, including murder and treason (see Burr, Aaron and Breckenridge, John). Lazier and greedier incumbents have satisfied themselves with mere extortion, tax evasion, bribery, and conspiracy (see Agnew, Spiro). Energetic […]

The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Kurdish press complaining that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been busily creating his own tribally based private militias, called ‘Isnad,’ and is using them to project his authority through brute force in various parts of Iraq. Iraq: What after Al-Maliki’s (Support) Councils?Kurdistani NuweTuesday, November 18, […]

Gitanjali Bakshi writes in a guest op-ed for IC: After months of slow but substantive progress, recent developments in Occupied Palestine, Israel and the U.S. have been largely unproductive. If we continue along this path in 2009, it will lead to a collapse in the on-going Israel-Palestine peace process. There are currently three main obstacles […]

Check out the terrific new politics and news site The Daily Beast.

Omid Memarian explains Iran’s turnaround on the Iraqi-US security agreement, which it was rejecting only last month: ‘Obama’s victory disarms leaders such as Ahmadinejad, who for decades have used inefficient American foreign policies as excuses to justify their own failures, mismanagement and corruption. Earlier this year, Ahmadinejad said that the “U.S. (political) establishment will not […]

Somali pirates have hijacked a Saudi oil super-tanker off the coast of Kenya and are steering it toward a Somali port. Somalia Riyadh

My column at Salon.com is out: “Should Obama chase Osama? On Sunday the president-elect told “60 Minutes” he wants to capture or kill bin Laden. Is he setting himself up for failure?” I argue that while actually stepping up pressure on al-Qaeda and quietly going after Bin Laden more vigorously would be all to the […]