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BAGHDAD/BEIRUT: Islamic State’s beheading of a US journalist and its threat to “destroy the American cross” suggests it has gained enough confidence seizing large areas of Iraq and Syria to take aim at American targets despite the risks. On Tuesday night, Islamic State released a video purporting to show one of its fighters beheading James Foley, who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago. The black-clad executioner, who spoke English with a British accent, also produced another American journalist and said his fate depends on President Barack Obama’s next move. Obama on Wednesday called for a joint effort to...

Deputy Knesset Speaker Feiglin on Iran, Arab Spring, U.S. Aid, and More The New American 20 May 2013 JERUSALEM — Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) Moshe Feiglin, who leads the Manhigut Yehudit (the Jewish Leadership) faction of the ruling Likud Party, spoke to The New American’s Alex Newman in late April during an interview at the Knesset in Jerusalem. (The photo shows MK Feiglin, center, with Newman.) While a controversial figure in Israel and still relatively unknown abroad after his successful election in January, the new lawmaker has developed a strong following among liberty-minded Jews. However, MK...

This was popped up in the headlines, and details are still sketchy, but something potentially big is afoot in Iraq. (And for once, we’re not talking about their being under attack by ISIS.) We were first tipped off on Twitter as well as a quick draw compilation of tweets from inside Iraq provided at Pundit Press. Here are a few, along with Pundit Press’s summary, keeping in mind that this isn’t confirmed yet: Iraq’s parliament just chose a new President who refused to rename Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki to a third term. Maliki declared the move unconstitutional and his...

Hillary Clinton, the front-runner among potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidates, is sharply distancing herself from President Obama's foreign policy, particularly in Syria, as Americans appear to continue losing confidence in his handling of key international affairs. Clinton, who as secretary of state was Obama’s top diplomat, suggested during an in-depth interview with The Atlantic magazine that the president’s foreign-policy mantra of “don’t do stupid stuff” lacked sufficient depth.

In the late interwar period, a few years before the ascendency of Adolf Hitler to the Chancellery, the famed German film director Fritz Lang created a classic of the silent film era. Spione (English: Spies) is a thriller of international espionage, intrigue, and manipulation by a criminal mastermind. Playing diplomats, politicians, and detectives against each other, using prostitutes, opium, and blackmail to control his adversaries, Lang’s arch villain Haghi pushes the world to the precipice of total war before he is brought down by the film’s hero. There is a man operating like this today. He has control of vast...

President Barack Obama stepped in front of the cameras on Thursday to utter words he hoped he would never say as commander in chief. "I've therefore authorized targeted airstrikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq," Mr. Obama said in a statement from the White House. "Today America is coming to help." The return to military engagement in Iraq is a reversal for Mr. Obama, whose early opposition to the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, and his promise to end it, fueled his long-shot campaign for the White House.

U.S. President Barack Obama authorized air strikes on Iraq to protect Christians and prevent "genocide" of tens of thousands of members of an ancient sect sheltering on a desert mountaintop from Islamic State fighters threatening to exterminate them. The United States began to drop relief supplies to refugees from the ancient Yazidi sect, but there was no sign yet of air strikes, which Obama authorized for the first time since pulling troops out in 2011. ... U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron evacuated expatriate staff from Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, industry sources said. Smaller oil companies that operate in...

President Obama said Thursday that United States military aircraft had dropped food and water to thousands of Iraqis besieged by Islamic militants on a mountaintop in northern Iraq. Speaking from the State Dining Room at the White House, the president said he had directed the United States military forces to conduct targeted airstrikes on the militants if they moved to take Erbil, threatening the American citizens and military personnel there.

The New York Times seemed to have caught the Pentagon by surprise this evening when it issued a breaking news alert about American forces bombing two targets in Iraq. The Pentagon firmly denied that American forces had begun a bombing campaign. But Pentagon officials said it was possible that allies of the United States, either the Iraqi or Turkish militaries, had conducted the bombing.

President Barack Obama is gathering nearly 50 African heads of state in Washington for an unprecedented summit aimed in part at building his legacy on a continent where his commitment has been questioned. From the start of his presidency, Obama has faced sky-high expectations from African leaders and U.S. policymakers who hoped the son of a Kenyan would bump Africa up the White House list of foreign policy priorities. Unlike his predecessor George W. Bush, who launched a $15 billion program to address HIV and AIDS, Obama seemed to be lacking a signature Africa initiative. And his administration's focus turned...

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

Even thousands of miles away from Gaza, citizens live in fear. And that’s just the way Western leaders want it. With their people living in fear, Western leaders escape citizen wrath for their lack of leadership in failing world economies.

ISIS has crucified more young men for being accused of “Ridda”. Ridda in Islam means defection from the religion. ... Crucifixions has become a normal occurrence in Syria and Iraq in which young men are seen crucified on trees .... And on scaffolds ... Mass slaughter has become a way of life in Caliphate controlled areas: ... This is all part of Hiraba which is Islamic law regarding punishments. We are beginning to see an escalation of crucifixions and it will soon get applied in full force in all the areas that the Caliphate rules. A nightmare is on the...

<p>Bahrain’s Sunni government has expelled a top US diplomat citing interference in the country’s internal affairs following his meeting with the main opposition Shia group.</p> <p>Bahrain asked US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Tom Malinowski, to immediately leave the country as he is “unwelcome” because of interference in the country’s internal affairs, the kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement as cited by Bahrain News Agency.</p>

obama-is-a-terrorist-A recent Gulf News report sheds some light on how and why the United States helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies to power, followed by all the subsequent chaos and atrocities in the Mideast region. Large portions of the report follow with my commentary interspersed for added context: Dubai: For the past decade, two successive US administrations have maintained close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya, to name just the most prominent cases. The Obama administration conducted an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 and 2011, beginning even before the events...

Israel is ready to meet any Jordanian request to help fight off Islamist insurgents who have overrun part of neighboring Iraq, an Israeli official said on Friday, although he believed Jordan was capable of defending itself. Asked to elaborate on the statement, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said potential Israeli assistance could include sending troops or arms, though he saw that as unlikely. "We have an interest in ensuring that Jordan does not fall to, or be penetrated by, groups like al Qaeda or Hamas or ISIS," he told Reuters. "If, God forbid, there is a need, if such a...

BRUSSELS — Iran is directing surveillance drones over Iraq from an airfield in Baghdad and is secretly supplying Iraq with tons of military equipment, supplies and other assistance, American officials said. Tehran has also deployed an intelligence unit there to intercept communications, the officials said. The secret Iranian programs are part of a broader effort by Tehran to gather intelligence and help Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government in its struggle against Sunni militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, has visited Iraq at least twice to help...

There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger. The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good....

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has today referred to U.S. President Barack Obama´s approach to Islamic extremism as ´disappointingly complacent´ in a speech to the Margaret Thatcher Liberty Conference in London. The high-profile event was attended by hundreds of political journalists, activists, writers, legislators and other global stakeholders. Howard’s comments were met by nods of approval across the room as he took aim at Barack Obama´s West Point commencement speech of last month. Howard said: "Islamic fundamentalism is a far greater threat than many people in their culturally equivocal way believe. "Obama´s West Point commencement speech… with the greatest

The Iraqi soldiers tell of how they can hardly live with the shame of their rout under the onslaught of the Islamic militants. Their commanders disappeared. Pleas for more ammunition went unanswered. Troops ran from post to post only to find them already taken by gunmen, forcing them to flee. “I see it in the eyes of my family, relatives and neighbors,” one lieutenant-colonel who escaped the militants’ sweep over the northern city of Mosul told The Associated Press. “I am as broken and ashamed as a bride who is not a virgin on her wedding night.”