Fears grow of Israel-Iran missile shootout
American officials are increasingly worried by an imminent an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities – and a harsh Iranian response, writes Robert Windrem of NBC.
The emerging consensus among current and former U.S. officials and other experts interviewed by NBC News is that that an Israeli attack would be a multi-faceted assault on key Iranian nuclear installations, involving strikes by both warplanes and missiles. It could also include targeted attacks by Israeli special operations forces and possibly even the use of massive explosives-laden drones, they say.
A Syrian Rebel’s Firsthand Report on the Fighting and Bombing in Homs
Katie Paul of the Daily Beast meets 26-year-old Zakaria Moutlak, smuggled Lebanon after being wounded by Syrian forces, who explains why he and his friends joined the fight against the Assad regime.
Moutlak started volunteering in the neighborhood’s field hospital. A week later, he decided to join the armed forces, too. “I couldn’t take it, seeing all those bodies—women, kids, blood, severed limbs—without doing anything,” he said. The officer in charge pushed back at first; he was only supposed to accept defectors, not civilian recruits. But two days later, Moutlak was trained and outfitted with his own Kalashnikov.
Iran election highlights Ahmadinejad and Khamenei power battle
With reformist candidates largely out of the picture, the upcoming parliamentary elections in Iran will pit the president against the supreme leader, writes Michael Theodoulou in The National.
Mr Ahmadinejad fell spectacularly from grace in the eyes of many fellow hardliners last year when he challenged the supreme leader’s authority in a public spat over a cabinet appointment. So bitter is the power struggle between them that Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that he could someday scrap the post of president entirely, replacing the position with a prime minister selected by parliament.
With Israel Apartheid Week underway at campuses across the U.S., Tablet Magazine offers tips on how to best argue Israel’s corner.
It’s important to remember, as the fake walls and fake checkpoints and fake tanks of Israel Apartheid Week come and go, such spectacles are just that—spectacle. Ideas and arguments hold more sway. And if we know our stuff, and believe in the truth of our arguments, then we should win the real debates every time.
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