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H1 New York Times Militias Resist Iraqi Forces in Fight for Basra American-trained Iraqi security forces failed for a third straight day to oust Shiite militias in Basra, even as President Bush hailed the operation as a sign of the growing strength of Iraq’s government

News Analysis: A Chill Ushers in a New Diplomatic Order in Pakistan

DAVID BROOKS Tested Over Time John McCain’s speech on Wednesday was as personal, nuanced and ambitious a speech as any by a presidential candidate this year

OpenDemocracy Iraq in 2012: four scenarios, Volker Perthes

“More from Marc Lynch. After quoting a Saudi Arabian editorial suggesting that Iran has abandoned Muqtada al-Sadr because it now has more useful allies in Baghdad, he summarizes the various guesses floating around about what's really going on in Iraq right now:”

The Economist American foreign policy All change? Whether it is Clinton, McCain or Obama, the world will still quarrel with America's foreign policy

The state of NATO A ray of light in the dark defile The Western alliance is in trouble in Afghanistan. But France is ready to help take on the Taliban, and others still want to join NATO

Independent Stalled assault on Basra exposes the Iraqi government's shaky authority

The Iraqi army's offensive against the Shia militia of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Basra is failing to make significant headway despite a pledge by the Iraqi PM to fight "to the end".

Nasr: Iraqi Prime Minister ‘Irrelevant’ in Shiite Power Struggle Council on Foreign Relations

Badr vs. Sadr in Iraq
Council on Foreign Relations

Patrick Cockburn / The Independent: Iraq implodes as Shia fights Shia

Washington Post U.S. Takes Lead in Iraq Offensive U.S. forces in armored vehicles battle Mahdi Army fighters in Sadr City as offensive begins third day

A 100-Year War? Charles Krauthammer | John McCain never said we'd be fighting in Iraq that long, but the Democrats want you to think he did.

NATO's Middling Agenda »

Jim Hoagland | Bush and Putin focus on legacy-building instead.

Chatham House - 'New Cold War' or 'Twenty Years' Crisis'? Russia and International Politics Richard Sakwa Download article here

WINEP The Damascus Arab Summit: Arab Divisions Ensure Modest Achievements

Reidar Visser The Enigmatic Second Battle of Basra

CRS “Enlargement Issues at NATO’s Bucharest Summit,” March 12, 2008.

“The NATO Summit at Bucharest, 2008,” March 24, 2008.

Multidimensional chess (By Arnaud de Borchgrave)

Der Spiegel Author Ian Buruma on Wilders' Politics: 'Condemning Islam, Per Se, Is Unhelpful'

Rice hits U.S. 'birth defect' Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding

Bush and Bin Laden's Virtual War By: Mark Danner | Asia Times
The George W Bush administration's "war on terror" could be summed up in three words - "fragmentation, diminution, destruction". That's fragmentation brought about by "creative destabilization", as in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine; diminution of American prestige, both military and political, and thus of American power; destruction of political consensus within the US for a strong global role. And all this to the advantage of Osama bin Laden

Ensuring permanence: A look at how the Bush administration is negotiating a long-term Iraq occupation.

Behind Sarkozy's Afghan Troop Plan TIME

US-Allied Arab Govts Ever More Draconian

The Growing Iraq Sectarian Divide

Asia Times Muqtada cuts free
Fighting in the south of Iraq between Muqtada al-Sadr's Madhi Army and a rival Shi'ite organization fitted in uniforms of the Iraqi security forces mark the end of Muqtada's self-imposed ceasefire. It also signals a major defeat for the US military command's strategy of weakening the Mahdi Army. - Gareth Porter

Guardian The sermons of cowards Kishore Mahbubani: The west is squandering authority on democracy and human rights: it fails to practise as it preaches

Bush likely to delay Iraq withdrawal Commanders want to keep the level of troops at about 140,000 in a 'pause' to assess security impact

Arab leaders snub Damascus summit Syria declares summit as a triumph over US pressure despite boycott over Lebanon role

Anglo-French axis aims for closer ties 'Entente formidable' plans include regular meetings, nuclear cooperation and coordinated foreign policy

Balkans on the boil Borut Grgic and Gordon N Bardos Aside from the Kosovo question, it is not alarmist to say that the region has entered a period of strategic uncertainty

Crisis talks Robert Wade The world's bankers are recognising the extent of the credit crunch. Now the world's politicians have to stop it getting worse

The Great Divide: Andrew Bacevich on the crisis of US military policy.

Colin Kahl and Shawn Brimley of CNAS offer their view of the way forward in Iraq:

The Devaluation of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on the Iranian Threat - Ephraim Kam Since the publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on the Iranian threat, its impact has been progressively devalued. This devaluation can be attributed, first of all, to the fact that the American administration, along with leading European governments and Israel, continued to stress the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat. Secondly, the NIE report ran into a storm of criticism by professional echelons in Israel, Europe and the U.S. itself. That criticism prompted Thomas Fingar, the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council that drafted the NIE, to admit in March 2008 that the Council did not assume that the report would be published and that if it had believed otherwise, it would have formulated the estimate somewhat differently. Thirdly, the most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency in February 2008 about Iran included voluminous information about procurement and attempted procurement of components critical to the development of nuclear explosive devices. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)

WINEP The Damascus Arab Summit: Arab Divisions Ensure Modest Achievements Given the current abundance of intra-Arab tensions over Lebanon and Iran, the upcoming Arab League summit in Damascus is unlikely to make good on its ambitious agenda. David Schenker writes

Daily Star Hopefully not a summit to end all summits
By Mohamed Abdel Salam

Toward a US policy that looks beyond Arab oil By Tamer Mallat

Uncovering the roots of the growing US financial crisis
By Jeffrey D. Sachs

Ha’aretz – ANALYSIS: Isolating Syria serves to highlight its importance Arab states are unable to force Syria's hand as Damascus holds the key to the Palestine, Lebanon crises

China-Tibet, America-Iraq: perils of forced modernity, Jeffrey N Wasserstrom

FT The Basra fight for Shia supremacy The US-led occupation forces will do nothing for their reputation or the future of Iraq by taking sides in an intra-Shia test of militia strength

Maliki risks open Sadrist insurrection

Nouri al-Maliki took a huge gamble this week when he ordered the Iraqi army into battle against Shia militias in the southern port city of Basra

Medvedev should expect the west’s respect – and resolve The message from the Nato summit in Bucharest must be that, yes, the US and Europe want a better relationship, but no, they are not about to concede the restoration of Russian primacy in the former Soviet sphere, writes Philip Stephens

The dollar is falling at the right time The dollar’s current decline is part of a natural process for reducing the American trade deficit, writes Martin Feldstein. Intervention is dangerous, warns

Nato chief warns Putin over summit

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s secretary-general, has warned Vladimir Putin that next week’s annual summit of the 26-member alliance must not be marked by another display from the Russian president of “unhelpful rhetoric” directed at the west

When inflation comes from abroad The emphasis in central banks’ policy should shift towards pressures that are domestically generated Samuel Brittan on what central banks must fight

IHT Georgia on their mind

By F. STEPHEN LARRABEE

Georgia's internal conflicts would be easier to resolve if NATO allowed it to join.

The hollowing of a hero

By NINA L. KHRUSHCHEVA

Yushchenko's only concern nowadays is his own political survival

New divisions arise in NATO over 2 bids for membership Before a meeting of alliance leaders in Bucharest, strong American support for the Ukrainian and Georgian bids for membership is being resisted by Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg and the Netherlands

RFE/RLRussia: Top Brass Signals Trouble Within Defense Ministry

Armenia Seeks Stronger Ties with Russia BY SERGEI BLAGOV Serzh Sarkisan, whose controversial election as president of Armenia precipitated political violence in Yerevan, is hoping closer ties with Russia can hasten a return of stability in the South Caucasus country.

Salon Peak oil? Consider it solved

Analysis: Al-Sadr in trouble, Iraq headed for meltdown (CNN)

The Times Militias in power grab as Iraq stares into abyss Iraqi PM vows to keep up fight against Shia forces as Iraqi Army falters in Basra and major oil pipeline is blown up

Analysis: Britain must now fight or fail

Iraq: the battle for Basra Britain should suspend the withdrawal of its troops from southern Iraq

Basra crisis leaves British withdrawal in ruins The Iraqi military offensive against Shia militias has backfired, thwarting plans to bring 1,600 troops home this spring

H 2 LA Times Turkey's religious bent By Robert Ellis The ruling party is corrupting the country's secular character.