Iran
Officials from landlocked Mongolia said they would cancel the flag registrations of five Iranian cargo ships, providing a window into the cat-and-mouse game played by international authorities that are trying to curb Tehran weapons programs and by Iranian companies trying to work around them. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Iraq is determined to stop and search flights from Iran over its territory which are suspected of carrying weapons to Syria, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments reported on Sept 30. – AFP
Analysis: In reports, talks, articles and interviews, [scholars, military, and arms control experts] argue that a strike could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival. – New York Times
Adm. William Fallon (USN, Ret.), Chuck Hagel, Lee Hamilton, Thomas Pickering, and Gen. Anthony Zinni (USA, Ret.) writes: When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama wisely described the dilemma that the United States faces as a great nation: “part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.” The United States needs to have a nonpartisan, reasoned discussion about the choice between necessity and human folly. – Washington Post
Mario Loyola writes: Thus far, we have assured Iran that proceeding with the next steps in its nuclear development entails few near-term risks. That must change. The Israeli red line assures Iran that it can continue enriching uranium for several more months at least. That must change. If there is still any chance of stopping Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, the time to add force to the diplomatic equation is now. – National Review Online
Syria
Syria’s regime and rebels traded blame for a massive fire that continued Sunday to devour parts of Aleppo’s vast ancient market—a treasured commercial, historical and cultural hub—as angry residents tried to assess the damage. – Wall Street Journal
Several days of high-level talks at the United Nations failed to significantly advance diplomatic efforts to stem the spreading violence in Syria, where more than 300 people were killed in a single day this week, according to opposition activists. – Washington Post
[R]ebels in Damascus are engaged in more calculated warfare, dominated by targeted operations that include checkpoint attacks, assassinations and the bombing of government security buildings. – Los Angeles Times
[E]ven in this de facto safe area, the Syrian government retains a lethal reach. Unable to pursue the rebels on the ground through the farmland and mountains of Idlib and Aleppo Provinces, Mr. Assad’s forces drop bombs from aircraft and shell villages where rebels are active, endangering civilians. – New York Times
While international attention has focused on the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled Syria, turmoil surrounding those displaced within the country is becoming a far larger problem. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
The U.S. has lost track of some of Syria’s chemical weapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday, and does not know if any potentially lethal chemicals have fallen into the hands of Syrian rebels or Iranian forces inside the country. – The E-Ring
Josh Rogin reports: Rebel leaders inside Syria are becoming increasingly frustrated and angry with what they perceive as a lack of American support, according to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who met with key opposition figures in Turkey earlier this month. – The Cable
Jonathan Spyer writes: The United States and other Western powers have typically prioritized threats, to be dealt with in order of urgency. First there were the Nazis, and then the Soviets. The pressing issue in the Middle East is still the Islamist bloc led by Iran that is racing toward a nuclear arms program. Ensuring that the rebellion against Assad succeeds would strike a major blow against the mullahs. – The Weekly Standard
Libya
The deadly attack earlier this month at a U.S. consulate in Libya was “deliberate and organized,” the top U.S. spy’s office said Friday. – Wall Street Journal
Outrage continued to grow Sunday over the Obama administration’s initial reaction to the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, which is being blasted as disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst. – Washington Times
[A]s Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions. – Washington Post
An effective response by newly trained Libyan security guards to a small bombing outside the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi in June may have led United States officials to underestimate the security threat to personnel there, according to counterterrorism and State Department officials, even as threat warnings grew in the weeks before the recent attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. – New York Times
Eli Lake reports: Why did it take eight days for the administration to acknowledge the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi were acts of terrorism? An unclassified briefing document provides new clues. – The Daily Beast
Josh Rogin reports: Top Democrats are rallying to defend U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice against a wave of attacks coming from Republicans in Congress, who are seeking to blame her for the administration’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the Benghazi consulate. – The Cable
Rogin also reports: All 19 members of the Senate Foreign Relations committee wrote to Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides Friday to request more answers and another administration briefing on the wave of anti-American attacks that took place earlier this month, including the Sept. 11 assault in Benghazi that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. – The Cable
Rogin also reports: The mother of Tyrone Woods, one of the two former Navy SEALs killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate, is speaking out about the slow pace of the investigation into the death of her son and three other Americans. – The Cable
Egypt
The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it would provide Egypt’s new government an emergency cash infusion of $450 million, but the aid immediately encountered resistance from a prominent lawmaker wary of foreign aid and Egypt’s new course under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. – New York Times
The presidents of Egypt and Yemen denounced the protesters’ violence in speeches to the U.N. General Assembly. But they were equally fervent in defending the religious outrage behind them and challenging Obama’s fulsome view of free speech. – Washington Post
Former Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik and 10 other ex-officials were ordered Sunday to face trial on corruption charges. – LA Times’ World Now
Bahrain
Riot police officers in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades on Saturday in clashes with protesters who broke away from a funeral procession for a 17-year-old boy killed the day before during street battles with the security forces. – Associated Press
Bahrain’s highest court on Monday upheld jail terms issued against nine medics convicted for their role in last year’s pro-democracy uprising, state news agency BNA reported, a decision that could further fuel unrest in the Gulf Arab state. – Reuters
Iraq
Bombs striking Shiite neighborhoods, security forces and other targets across Iraq killed at least 26 people Sunday, officials said, in the latest instance of coordinated violence to take a sectarian bent and undermine confidence in the beleaguered government. – Associated Press
Frederick and Kimberly Kagan write: We cannot go back in time and undo any of the mistakes that the current president or his predecessor made. We cannot return the situation to what it was on January 20, 2009, or December 15, 2011, and start over from there. We are not going to redeploy American military forces into Iraq. We must recognize the situation as it is and develop a new strategy for achieving vital American goals despite the challenges. – National Review
Max Boot writes: Messrs. Gordon and Trainor show, however, how little interest Mr. Obama had in extending any troop presence past 2011. While military commanders judged that they would need at least 16,000 troops to advise and assist Iraqi forces, Obama was willing to send fewer than 5,000; and when Iraqi officials raised predictable objections to Washington’s demands for complete immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops, Mr. Obama didn’t try to finesse the issue. Instead he pulled the plug on the negotiations and embraced a total pullout. – Wall Street Journal
Yemen
The president of Yemen gave an unqualified endorsement of American drone strikes in his country during a visit here on Friday, cementing his status as a favored counterterrorism partner of the United States. – New York Times
Yemen’s leader said Saturday that he personally approves every U.S. drone strike in his country and described the remotely piloted aircraft as a technical marvel that has helped reverse al-Qaeda’s gains. – Washington Post
Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, denied a chance to meet this week with President Barack Obama to advance his plea for a firmer U.S. line on Iran, spoke with Mr. Obama by phone on Friday—yielding a White House statement that both governments share the same objective. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
When the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, drew his red line on a cartoonish diagram of a bomb from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, he intended to illustrate in simple terms the point at which Iran’s uranium enrichment program must be stopped, at least in Israel’s view, to thwart a final sprint to a nuclear weapon. Instead, the attention-grabbing performance seems to have created confusion in, of all places, Israel. – New York Times
Afghanistan
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is being transferred and another Marine general will take over the war effort early next year as the United States and its allies shrink their combat role against the still-potent insurgency. – Los Angeles Times
Only two days after joint operations between American and Afghan forces were said to be returning to normal, five people — two Americans and three Afghans — were killed when a pitched battle broke out between soldiers of the two sides, American and Afghan officials said Sunday. – New York Times
Tribal leaders are the backbone of this strategically vital region near Afghanistan’s southern border with Pakistan. If they refuse to support the government after NATO forces leave, U.S. officials say there’s a good chance the Taliban could make a vigorous return. But if traditional leaders present a united front against the insurgency, bolstering the legitimacy of the Afghan army and police, officials contend that a beleaguered Taliban won’t be able to reconquer the district. – Washington Post
A suicide bomber killed 14 people, including three NATO soldiers and four police, and wounded 37 in Afghanistan’s volatile eastern Khost province on Monday, a NATO spokeswoman and local officials said. – Reuters
A senior NATO commander says that 80 percent of Afghanistan is free of violence but warned an insurgency still rages in the south and east, fuelled by fighters coming from neighboring Pakistan. – AFP
The killing of an American serviceman in an exchange of fire with allied Afghan soldiers pushed U.S. military deaths in the war to 2,000, a cold reminder of the perils that remain after an 11-year conflict that now garners little public interest at home. – Associated Press
An equal number of Afghan policemen and soldiers also died in these [insider] attacks, giving them reason as well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks. – Associated Press
Bing West writes: Throughout Helmand, the progress has been remarkable. Roads are open, markets are bustling, schools are full. The reason has been the gritty persistence of our Marines, deployment after deployment. One hundred patrols per man—one million footsteps, with tourniquets at the ready. The infantryman has done his job. It’s time for the Afghans to shovel the snow from their own doorsteps. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
China
Mr. Xi (his full name is pronounced Shee Jin-ping) gained a measure of credibility to speak for rural Chinese compared with many other well-connected children of the elite. He also realized, according to several inside accounts, that his powerful family stood firmly behind him, ensuring that his stint in the countryside would be a productive and relatively brief exercise in résumé building that could propel him up the Communist Party hierarchy. – New York Times
Even though the struggle over Bo’s fate took place largely behind closed doors, the damage is apparent. And it is far from clear that a new generation of leaders to be anointed at a party congress now set to begin Nov. 8 will find it easy to put it behind. – Los Angeles Times
The Harvard-educated son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai spoke out in defense of his father for the first time, questioning a catalog of accusations from the Communist Party leadership, which include that the onetime political highflier took bribes and had sexual relations with several women. – Wall Street Journal
As China celebrated the launch of its first aircraft carrier last week, images and video posted on the Internet raise new questions as to how far along the country has come in the development of its carrier capability. – Defense News
Editorial: In the case of the ousted Mr. Bo, it seems the party wanted to dispose of the embarrassing scandal before the Nov. 8 opening of the 18th Party Congress, at which the next generation of leaders will be anointed. But the high-profile expulsion of Mr. Bo only reinforces a sense that it is the party, and not the law, that reigns supreme. – Washington Post
East Asia
No matter who wins South Korea’s presidential election in December, the new leader will end its current get-tough policy with North Korea, which failed to weaken Pyongyang’s authoritarian regime or to slow its pursuit of nuclear weapons. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
No matter how South Koreans cast their ballots in the Dec. 19 presidential election, one thing is certain: Their decision will depend at least in part on their view of a former president who has been dead for 33 years. – New York Times
Analysis: After allowing anti-Japanese demonstrations that threatened to spin out of control, China has reined them in and turned instead to hard-edged diplomacy over disputed islands in the East China Sea to lessen any potential damage the conflict might have inflicted on the nation’s softening economy and a delicate leadership transition. – New York Times
Southeast Asia
The Philippines has deployed 800 more Marines and opened a new headquarters to guard its interests in the disputed Spratly Islands, which China also claims, a senior military official said Sept. 30. – AFP
A Cambodian court jailed a 71-year-old radio broadcaster and land-rights campaigner for 20 years on Monday after finding him guilty of leading an anti-state rebellion, a verdict condemned by activists as the latest crackdown on human rights. – Reuters
Editorial: [G]iven the opacity of the regime, no outsider can be sure what prompted it to reach out to the democratic opposition at this moment. We would defer to Aung San Suu Kyi’s version of history, which gives a big dollop of credit to the economic sanctions that the United States and other nations imposed years ago. – Washington Post
Russia
Russia’s Parliament voted Friday to bar a prominent opposition lawmaker, Ilya V. Ponomarev, from speaking on the floor for one month after he called members of the majority party “swindlers and thieves.” – New York Times
In Moscow, Putin has ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development out of the country by Monday, accusing it of meddling in Russia’s internal affairs because it offers financial support to election monitors and human rights activists. Out in the hinterlands, local officials have been showing who is boss, too. – Washington Post
The ascendance of Mr. Kholmanskikh…represents a deliberate turn by the president. Using unabashed, Soviet-era language, he is picking a culture war with the idea of driving a wedge between the Moscow-based opposition and what is assumed to be his natural base of support among workers in the provinces. – New York Times
A Russian court on Monday delayed the start of a hearing into an appeal against the conviction of three members of the punk band who burst into a church and performed a protest against President Vladimir Putin. – Reuters
Europe
In a rare video message, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the jailed former prime minister of Ukraine, lashed out against President Viktor F. Yanukovich, who is widely viewed as responsible for her imprisonment, and urged voters to defeat Mr. Yanukovich’s party in parliamentary elections next month. – New York Times
Tens of thousands of people marched through the center of the Polish capital Saturday in an anti-government rally organized by the conservative opposition hoping to unseat the country’s popular prime minister who it says has turned Poland’s democracy into a facade through his firm grip on power. – WSJ’s Emerging Europe
A majority of Hungarians are against the government’s plan to require voters to register ahead of the next round of elections, a controversial idea that the opposition has said will distort the result the elections skewing them in the governing party’s favor. – WSJ’s Emerging Europe
Georgia
Political opponents are accusing Georgia’s president of trying to “play Putin” for seeking to become prime minister because of term limits barring his candidacy in next year’s election — a ploy exploited by Russia’s former and current president, Vladimir Putin. – Washington Times
The leader of Georgia’s Orthodox Church used a Sunday service to warn against vote-rigging in Monday’s parliamentary voting, as the country braced for one of the most unpredictable elections in its 20-year post-Soviet history. – New York Times
Even before the video’s release, the parliamentary election in Georgia on Monday had become a referendum on such trade-offs of the so-called Rose Revolution, and what its young leaders have managed to do with their years in power. – New York Times
Josh Rogin reports: As Georgians head to the polls Monday, analysts are warning that rising tensions could boil over just as the Russian military is conducting exercises near the de facto border line, a situation the Georgia government is worried Moscow could exploit. – The Cable
Jackson Diehl writes: For now, this is one country where U.S. influence remains paramount. Both sides are vigorously seeking validation from Washington; the State Department, for its part, has been quietly pushing for a clean election and for peaceful acceptance of the results. If either government or opposition violate these strictures, it will be critical that the Obama administration speak out. – Washington Post
United States of America
Advisers to Mitt Romney are split over how broadly and aggressively to attack President Barack Obama for his handling of foreign policy following the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, according to top Republicans close to the campaign. – Politico
With the U.S. presidential election just over a month away, the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is quietly accumulating the names of potential candidates who could fill out Defense Department leadership roles — including current and former defense executives. – Defense News
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney writes: Our challenges are different now, but if the 21st century is to be another American Century, we need leaders who understand that keeping the peace requires American strength in all of its dimensions. – Wall Street Journal
David Ignatius writes: This strategy of avoiding major foreign policy risks or decisions may help get Obama reelected. But he is robbing the country of a debate it needs to have — and denying himself the public understanding and support he will need to be an effective foreign policy president in a second term, if the “rope-a-dope” campaign should prove successful. – Washington Post
Benjamin Runkle writes: [T]he potential devolution of the Arab Spring into anti-U.S. violence demonstrates why both candidates owe the American people a serious discussion about foreign and defense policy. Hopefully in the election campaign’s waning weeks the Democrats will offer much more than the ad hominen anti-Bush attacks they have provided to date. – Shadow Government
Latin America
On Sunday, Venezuela’s political opposition looking to unseat President Hugo Chávez in next week’s election demanded an investigation into the slaying of three activists at a political rally a day earlier. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
A week ahead of presidential voting, the leftist government of Hugo Chavez—faced with recent refinery accidents—has turned to buying large quantities of gasoline abroad, which it then sells locally and inexpensively. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Bringing to a close a case that stunned Colombia and focused attention on a brutal episode in the country’s long-running guerrilla war, Colombian authorities this week absolved a former state legislator just months after accusing him of helping to arrange his own kidnapping by rebels. – New York Times
Several thousand people poured into the streets of Haiti’s capital on Sunday to protest the government of President Michel Martelly. – Associated Press
Interview: Felipe Calderón arrives 15 minutes early for his meeting with the editors of The Wall Street Journal, as if he wants to put to rest the old stereotype about his countrymen living on “Mexican time.” It isn’t the only stereotype the Mexican president means to bury as he wraps up his six consequential (and term-limited) years in office. – Wall Street Journal
Editorial: Mr. Calderón is raising issues that lawmakers in both countries have ducked for too long. If his parting message prompts a serious debate, his lame-duck time will have been worthwhile. – Washington Post
Jorge Rendo writes: The 2009 law can have a positive effect on Argentina’s media, but it cannot be selectively applied and used as a tool to harass opponents. Selective enforcement against political rivals is eroding the rule of law, with dire implications for freedom of expression. I hope Argentina changes course before it is too late – Washington Post
Somalia
Under the cover of darkness, the Shabab militant group withdrew from the port town of Kismayu early Saturday, abandoning its last major stronghold and vowing to take the war underground. – New York Times
