Sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites continues to dominate headlines, but the latest threat to stability in Iraq — and perhaps the whole region — appears to be mounting tension between the Turkish government and Iraq’s Kurds, both of whom are now reported to be massing troops on the Iraq-Turkey border. While regional experts say the breakout of violence along the border likely is not imminent, recent developments indicate the United States is taking the threat seriously, as the consequences of a conflagration could be dire for the fragile Iraqi occupation. Turkey insists its grievance is with the Kurdistan Workers’ [...]
In an interview with the mass-circulation German tabloid Bild Zeitung, German Chancellor and current EU president Angela Merkel marked the EU’s 50th birthday celebration by revealing that her wish list includes a European Army. What Merkel and other EU leaders want is not a perpetuating of existing arrangements, but a “European fighting force” independent of, but working with, NATO. Given the complexities of existing EU defense arrangements, it is easy to understand the desire of European leaders for the kind of unified command and control structure a European Army would need. While Merkel claimed the prospect had “come closer,” the [...]
KATMANDU, Nepal — While thousands of Nepalese gathered to mark the first anniversary of the king’s humiliating capitulation on April 24, 2006, King Gyanendra was, quite literally, praying for survival. At the Dakshinkali Temple, just outside of Katmandu, the king and Queen Komal oversaw the ritual slaughter of five animals — a rooster, duck, goat, sheep and water buffalo — in a ceremony to appease the bloodthirsty deity, Kali. It was on this day last year that King Gyanendra announced he was ending his 15-month autocratic reign, after 19 days of protests in the streets of Katmandu and around the [...]
