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Tuesday, July 08, 2008 22:22 GMT

Stories by Gareth Porter

Gareth Porter is an historian with a PhD in South-east Asian studies from Cornell University in New York state. He was Saigon Bureau Chief for Dispatch News Service in 1970 and 1971. Porter has taught international studies at City College of New York and American University and has written several books on Vietnam, the most recent being "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War", published by the University of California Press in 2005. He has also written on war and diplomacy in Cambodia, Korea and the Philippines. Porter has been a news analyst for IPS focusing on U.S. policy and developments in Iraq and Iran since September 2005.

POLITICS: Where Are Those Iranian Weapons in Iraq?
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
The U.S. military command in Iraq continues to talk about an alleged pipeline of Iranian weapons to Iraqi Shiites opposing the U.S. occupation, implying that they have become dependent on Iran for indirect-fire weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

POLITICS-US: Hawks Belie Iran's 'Existential Threat' to Israel
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favour of U.S. strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the U.S. and Israel and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all.

POLITICS-US: Coercive Diplomacy Disputed at Centrist Meet
by Gareth Porter
The assumption that the U.S. should exploit its military dominance to exert pressure on adversaries has long dominated the thinking of the U.S. national security and political elite in the past. But this central tenet of conventional security doctrine was sharply rejected this week by a senior practitioner of crisis diplomacy at the debut of a major new centrist foreign policy think tank.

POLITICS-IRAQ: Fear of US-Sunni Ties Undercut Security Talks
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
The threat by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month to reject the U.S.-Iraq status of forces and strategic framework agreements was prompted in part by U.S. demands for access to bases that were unacceptable to a highly nationalistic Iraqi population.

POLITICS-US: How Cheney Outfoxed His Foes on Iran and EFPs
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
For many months, the propaganda line that explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that could penetrate U.S. armoured vehicles were coming straight from Iran has been embraced publicly by the entire George W. Bush administration. But when that argument was proposed internally by military officials in January 2007, it was attacked by key administration officials as unsupported by the facts.

US/IRAN: Fearing Escalation, Pentagon Fought Cheney Plan
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.

POLITICS-US: Bush Pledges on Iraq Bases Pact Were a Ruse
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
Two key pledges made by the George W. Bush administration on military bases in its negotiations with the government of Iraq have now been revealed as carefully-worded ruses aimed at concealing U.S. negotiating aims from both U.S. citizens and Iraqis who would object to them if they were made clear.

POLITICS: Bogus Claim, al-Maliki Stall U.S. Plan on Iran Arms
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
Early this month, the George W. Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

POLITICS-US: Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change after 9/11
by Gareth Porter*
Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

More North American News

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POLITICS-US: Vets Mull Wins and Losses in Benefits Fight

Q&A: What the Most Seen Photographs Say

IRAQ: Journalist Charges Censorship by U.S. Military in Fallujah

RIGHTS-US: "State Secrets" Privilege Derails Rendition Suit

ENVIRONMENT-US: Funding Questions Dog Everglades Clean-Up

/UPDATE*/POLITICS-US: Afghanistan Moves Back into the Limelight

Global News from our Affiliates

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IRAN: Did IAEA Revive Uranium Paper Issue Under Pressure?

POLITICS-KENYA: Civil Society Scores Victory Against Corruption

G8: Majority Favours An Exclusive Club

CLIMATE CHANGE: Corals Collapsing in More Acid Oceans

DEVELOPMENT: Tourism's New Wave

RIGHTS-ETHIOPIA: New Media Law, New Threat to Press Freedom

COLOMBIA: Did the Army 'Steal' FARC's Hostage Release?

MIDEAST: Palestinian Village Takes On Israeli Military

ROMANIA: Last Intact Forest Under Threat

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