Middle East

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's secretly recorded comments about Americans who don't pay income taxes and Palestinians who don't want peace may finally convince Republicans that he's as conservative as he claims to be. Although blunter than usual, his remarks at a private fundraiser in May reinforce themes that Romney has been sounding in the campaign about President Obama promoting dependency on government benefits and taking the ...

In private remarks to donors, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney questioned the viability of a two-state solution to the Israel Palestinian dispute, a longtime staple of official U.S. policy, saying that Palestinians don't want peace, according to a video released Tuesday. Saying that he was “torn” over the matter, Romney told donors in Florida at a fund-raiser in May that he has long been concerned “that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish,” according to the recording, which was released by Mother Jones magazine .  Tuesday marked the second day that Romney was dogged by his unscripted comments at the fund-raiser.

“The Daily Show” was in reruns last week as violent protests erupted across the Muslim world, but back on the air Monday night, Jon Stewart addressed the turmoil in the Middle East - and particularly what he sees as the hypocritical conservative response to it. It's always awkward for such a topical show to respond to big news several days after it's broken, but on the bright side, the downtime gave “The Daily Show's” research team...

WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Little-known presidential candidate Gary Johnson gave an answer that would create a media firestorm if delivered by Barack Obama or Mitt Romney: the United States should get out of the Middle East. Johnson, a Libertarian who is on 47 state ballots and fighting petition challenges in the other three, including Pennsylvania, suggested that the U.S. presence in the Middle East is abetting unrest in the region. "Get out of these embassies, just plain get out," Johnson said in an interview Monday with the Allentown (Pa.)

Arguing that “democracy is not just casting a ballot,” President Obama  said fledgling governments in the Arab world must also respect freedom of speech and tolerate diverse views, condemning continued violence that has been attributed to a controversial anti-Islam video. In an interview with CBS' David Letterman on the "Late Show," Obama also said that his administration is committed to “reinforcing” security at its diplomatic posts in the Middle East and bringing those responsible for the deaths of diplomatic personnel in Libya “to justice.” "The message we have to send to the Muslim world is that we expect you to work with us, to keep our people safe, and as offensive as this video was -- and obviously we denounced it, the United States government had nothing to do with it -- that's never an excuse for violence,” Obama said.

CAIRO - Anti-American violence erupted across the Muslim world for a third day, with enraged protesters scaling the walls of U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia and hard-pressed police waging street battles with demonstrators in several Middle East capitals. Protesters tore down the flag at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, the Tunisian capital, and set a nearby American school afire. In Khartoum, Sudan's capital, demonstrators breached an embassy wall and raised a black flag of militant Islam as police struggled to push them back.

The chaotic violence that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three American staffers in Libya, and that resulted in a mob storming the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, has been garbed in religious language and references. However, the religious rhetoric from all corners distracts from the real issues: serious domestic political fragmentation in Libya and Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and America's place in the region. Media attention has focused on a polemic 14-minute movie trailer for "Innocence of Muslims" posted on YouTube, which prompted protests in Benghazi and Cairo.

Although Nick B. Williams Jr. would carve out a distinguished career as an editor and foreign correspondent at the Los Angeles Times, he first had to overcome the "junior" at the end of his name. He joined the newspaper in the late 1960s when his father, Nick B. Williams Sr., was editor of The Times, and a highly regarded one at that. "When Nick junior was added to the staff, a number of people - cynics mainly - said, 'He's the editor's son. What the hell is he going to do?' Turns out, if they had waited 20 minutes, they would have found out he was a terrific editor and a terrific reporter," George Cotliar, a former managing editor of The Times, said Wednesday.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi took a crucial step toward building his government last week with the appointment of Hesham Kandil as prime minister. One month into his term, Morsi has yet to consolidate authority. As he tries to strengthen civilian rule through effective governance, Egypt's first democratically elected president would do well to learn from America's vast experience with presidential transitions, beginning with three important lessons. First, he should avoid the "first 100 days" trap.

Is there any organization outside of Hollywood more prey to intellectual fads than the Department of Defense? A decade ago the buzzword around the Pentagon was "transformation. " Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wanted to force radical change to take advantage of information technology. So the individual services took to justifying every program, even hulking tanks and massive aircraft carriers, as "transformational. " Then, as the armed forces became more deeply embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, the buzzword became counterinsurgency, or "COIN.