Free Republic

The Paris terrorist attacks seem likely to compel President Barack Obama to consider military escalation against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But that probably will not mean dramatic moves like launching a U.S. or international ground offensive or accelerating aerial bombing in hopes of eliminating the global threat of violent extremism. "You aren't going to bomb ISIS back to the Stone Age," Anthony Cordesman, a longtime Middle East analyst, said Saturday. [...] As Cordesman sees it, years of tragic terrorist attacks like Paris are almost inevitable, and there are no near-term solutions. ...

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING Strategy site to Obama: End alliance with Israel WASHINGTON — A newsletter-publisher said to have ties with the Obama administration has called on Washington to end its strategic alliance with Israel. George Friedman, publisher of Stratfor, has published a book that called on the Obama administration to reorder U.S. foreign policy. Friedman has argued that the key element of the proposal required the end of U.S. strategic ties with Israel and bolstering of cooperation with the Islamic world, particularly Iran and Pakistan. "The United States must quietly distance itself from Israel," Friedman says in...

The US did not give the green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, Prof. Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official and currently the top defense analyst at the ABC TV network, said Monday. Cordesman was speaking during a meeting with Israeli defense analysts held by the Institute of National Security Studies. He said IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was notified of the United States' stance regarding Iran by Admiral Michael Mullen, the top uniformed US military officer, during Mullen's visit here at the end of June. The US has opted at this point to stick...

Donald Rumsfeld's pride went before his fall--and thousands of needless deaths DONALD RUMSFELD gives Robert McNamara, chief architect of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war policy, a good run for his money as worst U.S. defense secretary of modern times. Rumsfeld's competitiveness in this race is freshly illustrated in "Endgame," the newest episode of public television's unrivaled "Frontline" series. The Middle East birthed the world's great monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christianity, Islam. During the past 6 years Washington has produced lesser Gods of One, who believe that the world is as they say it is, or will be as soon as their divine breath...

Today: July 13, 2002 at 10:10:14 PDT U.S. Says Iraq Would Target Troops ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON- The threat from Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is primarily to U.S. troops and to enemies of President Saddam Hussein inside and near Iraq rather than to civilians in the United States, defense and intelligence officials say. Iraq is believed to have biological weapons including anthrax spores and botulinum poison, which causes botulism. As for chemical agents, Iraq is thought to possess mustard, tabun, sarin and possibly VX gases, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Those are what U.N. inspectors had...

The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according to a military and intelligence expert. Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search and Iraqi insurgency in a report released Friday. It was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator...

THE Iranian leadership was doing a fine line in rhetoric, until Israel and the US weighed in with specific allegations that Tehran had troops on the ground in Lebanon and that it was an Iranian-built missile that struck an Israeli warship off Beirut. Accusing Israel of adopting the tactics that Hitler had used against the Jews, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taunted the Israelis - cockily claiming Israel would not dare to strike Tehran, and warning that any attack on Syria would provoke a "crushing response" from the Islamic world. At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Emami Kashani, one of the country's...