BAGHDAD – Politicians appealed Wednesday for emergency aid for thousands ofminority Iraqis who have been stranded with little food on a mountaintop in the country’s north, surrounded by al-Qaeda-inspired rebels. ... المزيد

                    

The New York Times Kerry Proposes Weeklong Halt to Fighting in Gaza Strip ... المزيد

                    

Foreign Affairs - The stunning recent military successes by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have triggered a wave of gloomy prognoses about the demise of the Sykes-Picot regional order in the Levant and the withering away of the Iraqi and Syrian territorial states. However, the stakes are higher than the disintegration of what have always been permeable borders and the collapse of a long bygone Anglo-French agreement. Indeed, this year could mark the birth of a new regional order, one that dismisses the all-too-realist geopolitical contests of the past and clings, instead, to sectarianism. ... المزيد

                    

Guardian .. ... المزيد

                    

Foreign Affairs There seems to be little connecting recent violence in the former Soviet space to ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East. In one place, a neo-imperialist power is attempting to reassert itself in a region that it ruled not so long ago. In the other, sect-based militant groups are grabbing up territory by the mile. ... المزيد

                    

WASHINGTON -The New York Times - Deepening its involvement in the crisis in Iraq, Iran has sent three Russian-made attack planes to the Maliki government that could be deployed against the Sunni militants who have wreaked havoc on Iraqi military forces, American and Iraqi officials said Tuesday. ... المزيد

                    

العراق يؤخر تشكيل Washington Post - Iraq delays formation of a new government, as country veers further toward collapse حكومة جديدة بينما ينحرف العراق نحو الهاوية ... المزيد

                    

أمريكا تمسكت بالمالكي ونتيجة لذلك، فإننا نواجه الآن هزيمة استراتيجية في العراق وربما في الشرق الأوسط الكبير. By Ali Khedery July 3 at 1:39 PM Ali Khedery is chairman and chief executive of the Dubai-based Dragoman Partners. From 2003 to 2009, he was the longest continuously serving American official in Iraq, acting as a special assistant to five U.S. ambassadors and as a senior adviser to three heads of U.S. Central Command. In 2011, as an executive with Exxon Mobil, he negotiated the company’s entry into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. ... المزيد

                    

washington post - I know what it looks like when a city is captured. I was there. Peter Arnett By Peter Arnett June 30 Peter Arnett won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for his coverage of the Vietnam War (for the AP) and an Emmy for his coverage of the 1991 Gulf war (for CNN). The desolation of ISIS. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Exploding shells and rockets rattled me awake in the early hours of a misty Tuesday morning in Saigon. I scrambled to my hotel roof and watched as fireballs, smoke and debris burst across the city’s famous airport — once one of the busiest in the world, now shut down as thousands desperate to evacuate jammed the hangars. As dawn arrived, people rushed to the rooftops of nearby buildings, staring in shock at the sudden, savage attack from artillery encircling the city. Two older military transport planes made an attempt to climb into the sky, slowly twisting and turning to escape surface-to-air missiles. Clay pigeons in a shooting gallery, they both soon exploded in smoke and flames, crashing in pieces on the houses below. Within 24 hours, the whole city was engulfed in chaos as a new regime took over. It was April 1975 ... المزيد