Nigeria’s recent decision to affirm the handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon belies a Washington theory about Nigeria and American national security. The theory goes like this: Nigeria is on the verge of collapsing into civil war. The poor, marginalized, radicalized Muslim north will rise against the Christian south and a great conflagration will ensue. Twenty percent of Africa’s population will be consumed in the fire, and America’s access to the flow of oil in the Niger Delta will disappear. Official Washington believes that we must prepare now for the inevitable. But mere war is far too simplistic an [...]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — One looks in vain for names in the 22-page report. Last week, Special Investigator Serge Brammertz submitted the ninth U.N. report on the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. But hopes that the 45-year-old Belgian prosecutor would name suspects went unfulfilled. Invoking the confidentiality of the investigations, for the seventh time since assuming his responsibilities in January 2006, Brammertz declined to identify the possible perpetrators of the crime. Brammertz’s predecessor, Detlev Mehlis, had proceeded otherwise. In the first report of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) in [...]
The Dec. 3 assessment by the U.S. intelligence community that Iran has not pursued an active nuclear weapons program since 2003 could lessen concerns about a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. According to the just released unclassified summary of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities, “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.” U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley released a statement that, “Today’s National Intelligence Estimate offers some positive news. It confirms that we were right [...]
