As Iran and the Obama administration maneuver toward a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, the Western news media continues to stoke the crisis by hyping Iran’s capabilities, including misreporting the significance of a new report on Iran’s supply of 20-percent…
Tag: Gareth Porter
How Mistress Helped Petraeus
A back story to the sex scandal that ended David Petraeus’s 14 months as director of the CIA is that his mistress, Paula Broadwell, was an apologist for abusive actions by the U.S. command in Afghanistan. She defended the leveling of an Afghan…
Did Netanyahu Seek War with Iran?
The Israeli news media is reporting that in 2010 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israel’s military onto high alert for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program but was blocked by his military and intelligence chiefs. But the question remains how…
A Missed Connection with Iran
Fourteen years ago, Iran reached out to the United States with an invitation to have U.S. nuclear scientists examine Iran’s nuclear program. However, the Defense Department nixed the plan and possibly missed a chance for avoiding the current crisis, Gareth…
Iran and West Inch toward Nuke Deal
The outline for a resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute is coming into focus, perhaps only waiting for the U.S. presidential election to be decided. But suspicions between Iran and the West continue to beset the slow progress toward a resolution,…
How Petraeus’s Afghan ‘Surge’ Failed
In 2009, Gen. David Petraeus insisted on a troop “surge” in Afghanistan like the one he had overseen in Iraq. Yet, despite the positive PR for Petraeus and his “surges,” little was accomplished beyond putting more U.S. GIs within range of…
Obama Backs Down Netanyahu
Despite doubts from many quarters, President Obama appears to have backed down Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu from his demands for an explicit American “red line” to attack Iran’s nuclear program and from Netanyahu’s own suggestions of a unilateral Israeli bombing strike,…
Iran Reaffirms Offer on Nukes
In his swan song to the UN General Assembly, Iran’s term-limited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is stirring up the usual media outrage with remarks on gays, freedom of speech and Israel. But the West still ignores a substantive Iranian proposal on uranium enrichment,…
A Taliban Gain in Afghanistan
After 11 years, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan like the ill-fated war in Iraq is grinding toward a strategic defeat for Washington. The latest setback is the suspension of joint operations with Afghan troops after a rash of killing of NATO…
Obama Impedes Israel’s Iran Attack
The ploy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use the November elections to push President Obama into supporting an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites appears to be failing in the face of Obama’s firm “no,” say Jim Lobe and…