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The Syrian government has condemned a decision by the Arab League to pull its monitors from the raging civil war zone. The Arab League said Saturday it had decided to "immediately" suspend its mission to monitor the situation in Syria due to the growing violence, the BBC reported. The decision came less than a week after a vote to extend the mission another month. Fierce fighting near Damascus centered on several eastern suburbs that had been seized by opposition forces, and which government troops fought to recapture. At least 12 people were killed and 30 others were wounded in the...

The US flag is to be lowered in Baghdad, formally marking the end of US military operations in Iraq after nearly nine years of war. Most of the 5,500 remaining soldiers have now left Iraq, with security in the hands of the Iraqi authorities. President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to bring troops home, said the US left behind a "sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq". Some 4,500 US soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqis have died in the war. It has cost the US some $1tr. Republicans have criticised the pullout citing concerns over Iraq's stability, but most...

As bad news piles up for the Democrats, I asked a top Democratic strategist if it were possible that President Obama might "pull a Lyndon Johnson" and soberly face the cameras, telling America that he has decided that the demands of partisan politics are interfering with his efforts to right our economy and that he has decided to withdraw to devote full time to our recovery. His answer: "Yes. It's possible. If things continue as they are and have not turned around by January, it is certainly possible." Just looking at Michelle Obama's unsmiling face during her husband's recent speech...

The Iraqi Vice President Khudair al-Khuzaie said Wednesday U.S. forces will withdraw from Iraq as scheduled by the end of 2011. Khuzaie made his remarks after meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad James Jeffrey, in which the two discussed issues of common interest, including the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of this year and the training of Iraqi forces, Khuzaie' s office said in a statement. The vice president called on the U.S. government to focus, in the upcoming stage, on "cooperation and partnership with Iraq in the fields of investments and reconstruction," according to...

Is Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan Fast Enough? Too fast. The Taliban could easily regain momentum. Not fast enough. The troop withdrawal is long overdue. Just right. We need to balance the needs on the ground with the desire to bring troops home. Other (leave a comment)

As the last group of British Royal Navy training staff pulls out of Iraq on Sunday marking the end of the UK military operation in the country, British MP Paul Flynn told RT the war in Iraq was not really worth it. ­“With 179 British lives lost and ten billion pounds spent, there will be no celebrations, no parades or marches or flags out to mark the end of the war. And all we seem to have achieved is we have replaced one rotten government with another rotten government,” stated Flynn. According to the MP, the whole country understood it...

New details have emerged of the failures that led to the deaths of seven CIA agents in Afghanistan. Christina Lamb and Miles Amoore reportIt was the week after Christmas and there was a line of paper Santas hanging in the small chow house at Forward Operating Base Chapman, sent to Afghanistan by loved ones back home. Among the CIA agents waiting in the morning chill, amid the exercise bicycles and weights, were a mother of three and a father of three who had had to tell their children they would not be home for Christmas. This was not the first...

After weeks of heated debate over plans for an Islamic community center near Ground Zero - the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York - it seems Muslim leaders will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site. ...

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – The U.S. military is moving mass amounts of equipment out of Iraq in accordance with President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw the majority of U.S. assets out of theater by Aug. 31. The 1st Theater Sustainment Command’s Distribution Management Center here is playing a key role in the move, the largest U.S. military logistics movement since World War II. Warrant Officer Brian Gaines, 1st TSC, DMC, said the 1st TSC and its supporting units are working to meet the president’s deadline to pull an estimated 1.5 million pieces of equipment out of Iraq. "We're having units...

Danny Yatom, who was head of Mossad during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's first term, said Thursday that the premier then agreed to withdraw from the entire Golan Heights in a future peace deal with Syria. President Shimon Peres and... Yatom told Israel Radio that although Netanyahu's agreement didn't bind him now, "he has to admit" that he did agree to withdraw from the territory. Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) told the radio station that the prime minister had said numerous times that he would not agree to such a pullout, and that anyway, there

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Army colonel's colorfully worded memo arguing for the U.S. to declare victory in Iraq and leave next summer suggests the possibility of an important shift in the debate about U.S. withdrawal plans. Until now the question has been whether thousands of U.S. troops might need to stay beyond a December 2011 deadline for a complete U.S. pullout, in order to continue training and advising Iraqi forces. The memo written by Col. Timothy R. Reese, a U.S. adviser to the Iraqi military command, turns that question on its head by asking whether it makes more sense to...

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2009 – U.S. soldiers could remain in Mosul, Iraq, past June 30, when Iraqi forces are scheduled to assume full security responsibilities for the entire country, a senior U.S. military commander in the area said today. Army Col. Gary Volesky, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, said in a video news conference from Iraq that the Iraqi government will make that determination. “We are conducting an assessment right now with our Iraqi counterparts to determine what the way ahead is for security in Mosul,” Volesky said. “If the Iraqi government believes...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama conferred with senior Iraqi leaders, U.S. officials and military commanders Monday, as a spokesman for the Iraqi government declared that it would like U.S. combat forces to complete their withdrawal by the end of 2010. The comments by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh mark the second time in recent days that a senior Iraqi has endorsed a timetable for U.S. withdrawal that is roughly similar to the one advocated by Obama. Dabbagh suggested that a combat force pullout could be completed by the end of 2010, which would be about seven months longer than Obama's 16-month formulation....

That's the headline over at The Caucus, where Jeff Zeleny reports Barack Obama dropped a not so subtle hint today in North Dakota that his fixed, 16-month timetable for pulling US troops out of Iraq beginning in January 2009 may in fact not be so fixed: "I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed," he said. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure...

LONDON — Britain's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that no final decision is imminent on withdrawing all remaining British troops from Iraq, as the BBC reported that the government would outline pullout plans by the end of the year. The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that Cabinet ministers plan to announce within months a final pullout of troops, provided a lull in violence holds. Britain has 4,000 troops remaining in Iraq at a base on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said he will discuss the U.K.'s role in Iraq with U.S. President George W....

How badly would an American pullout affect Iraq?  According to the nation’s foreign minister, all of the security gains would evaporate and bring the country back to the brink of civil war.  Hoshyar Zebari spoke to the Associated Press to make sure Americans know exactly what is at stake: Iraq’s foreign minister said Tuesday that he believes his country has averted a civil war after five years of “tears and blood,” and warned that an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal would be disastrous.Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press that mistakes had been made by all sides but Iraq has...

No retreat from the War on Terror If the West backs out of Afghanistan the consequences would be plainly catastrophic David Aaronovitch In recent days, and unsurprisingly, it has become common to hear the mournless rites being read for liberal interventionism. If anyone has opined publicly about Afghanistan in the last week - and plenty did - it was to regret our presence there and to wish us away. If ever an argument was being won by default this was it, especially since those making the case for quitting were far too exuberant to want to slow up and allow...

In his final State of the Union address tonight, President George Bush plans to announce that the U.S. economy has become such a quagmire that the federal government will begin a phased withdrawal. The nation’s chief executive will reportedly tell the American people that the government got involved in the U.S. economy under false pretenses, has mismanaged the effort from the beginning, and the president believes now that “the only way forward is backward.” The president will propose immediate reductions in taxes, regulation, government spending and federal bureaucracies.

Democrats snub Republican Iraq pullout timelineFri Sep 28, 2007 10:37pm ET By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several Senate Republicans proposed drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq over 15 months, but Democrats rejected the plan because it stretched to after the November 2008 election, both sides said on Friday. It was the latest manifestation of a Senate stalemated over how to end the unpopular Iraq war launched by President George W. Bush in 2003. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sounding frustrated with the Senate, said her chamber would take up several Iraq bills next week, although none dictate...

Putting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a tight political position, the state Assembly voted Monday to place a measure on California's Feb. 5 ballot urging President Bush to immediately withdraw American troops from Iraq. The 43-32 roll call left the proposal one step from Schwarzenegger's desk. It was sent back to the Senate, which approved a slightly different version of the bill in June. Final approval by the Senate would send the bill to the Republican governor, who could risk angering members of his own party by signing it and putting it on the presidential primary ballot or veto the bill...