The chink in airports' armor

African nations can't meet even the old security standards that Western nations now call too lax. One option is to screen travelers from developing countries more thoroughly at transit airports.

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Swing states may be on the move

The voter sentiments that put Democrats on top in 2008 could turn against the party in November's midterm. Obama's proposals for healthcare, the economy and immigration could deepen divisions.

"Joseph Nichols, a 25-year-old Democrat from Henderson, said the healthcare debate "has been going on for quite a few months. And they need to stop and realize that Americans are losing houses and families because there are no jobs, no money, no nothing."

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By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

In "North by Northwest," cold and heartless bureaucrats in Washington realize they may have inadvertently sent a frivolous but innocent advertising man to his death, and one of them says, "It's so horribly sad -- why do I feel like laughing?" The dichotomy pops up all the time among observers of media, politics and the personalities who inhabit those spheres, and it probably always will, largely because people in those lines of work are, to state it in the most innocuous way possible, full of surprises.

Brit Hume was certainly full of something on "Fox News Sunday" this week. Hume, a part-time analyst at Fox since stepping down from his daily anchor role, sought to redefine the job of political pundit, apparently, when he stepped boldly up to the task of telling people what religious beliefs they ought to have. He prescribed in particular a remedial, therapeutic dose of Christianity for disgraced golfing champ Tiger Woods, a man whose lubricious private life has been haunting the headlines for weeks.

Noting that Woods has referred to himself as a Buddhist, Hume knocked his fellow "Fox News" panelists for mortified loops when he dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet with the remark, "I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith."

It sounded a little like one of those Verizon vs. AT&T commercials -- our brand is better than your brand -- except that Hume was comparing two of the world's great religions, not a couple of greedy communications conglomerates. Further, is it really his job to run around trying to drum up new business? He doesn't really have the authority, does he, unless one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize?

Oh, but there was much more to it. Since Buddhism is so lacking in news-you-can-use, Hume continued -- sinking into his own mouth-made mire -- "My message to Tiger would be: Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world." Whom did he sound more like -- Mary Poppins on the joys of a tidy room, or Ron Popeil on the glories of some amazing potato peeler?

You could almost hear the gears of YouTube turning as he spoke, and imagine the writers on "Saturday Night Live" trying to find ways other than the painfully obvious to satirize the moment and what it represents.

The easiest mistake to make would be to associate Hume's off-the-cuff, off-the-wall remark with the pathology of Fox News, a cherished target of the left just as the left is a cherished target of certain Fox personalities. Some of us cling to our faith that there is no institutional bias at the network, and that the business of Fox, to paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, is business.

Darts of derision should be aimed at Hume, not at his employer or at Fox News as a social force. Before one gets too carried away with Brit-bashing, however, it's worth a Google or two to investigate the origins of Hume's seemingly newfound fervor. Is he really known far-and-wide for advocating religious fixes for scandals and furors? He did say, at the 2008 Republican convention, "I'm 65, for God's sake," but that was a mere aside, not a statement of policy.

Earlier, though, when it was still the 20th century, Hume discussed, in an interview, his spiritual epiphany and what motivated it. "I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me," he said; it was in the aftermath of his son's death by suicide in 1998. It would be indefensibly insensitive to mock Hume for his beliefs, especially considering the way he came to them, but that still doesn't mean one must cheer him on as he tries to turn a bully pulpit into a pulpit, period.

In a way that many others had spoken of this particular faith, Hume seemed so bolstered by Christianity that he just had to go tell it on the mountain. And the golf course. And Fox news-talk shows.

Whatever his motivations, and however his statement regarding Woods reflected Hume's own emotional turmoil, the remark will probably rank, even only a few days into January, as one of the most ridiculous of the year. It tends at the least to banish any wayward hopes that the looniness of the Bawdy Aughties is over; we're not out of the woods, or the Woods, yet. Oh no, the madness will go on and on and on, at least until some sanctimonious busybody takes it upon himself to go even roguer than Hume.

If Hume's remark is going to turn out to be a mere starting point, where in the name of all that's holy (really holy, genuinely holy) is the finishing line going to find us? Or leave us?

Hume has a message for Woods; lots of people will have a message for Hume. First off, apologize. You gotta. Just say you are a man who is comfortable with his faith, so comfortable that sometimes he gets a wee bit carried away with it. If Hume wants to do the satellite-age equivalent of going door-to-door and spreading what he considers the gospel, he should do it on his own time, not try to cross-pollinate religion and journalism and use Fox facilities to do it.

At the same Republican convention where Hume bemoaned his advancing years, he spoke of knowing when to leave the party and go home. "I'd like to walk away while I'm still doing okay," he said, "and not have people say, 'He was fading.' " It's easy to understand the sentiment, but Hume ought to know that what people are saying right now is a whole lot worse than that he's fading.

End of journalism as we know it

How can we develop new media to produce nuanced discourse and solid recommendations for our politicians?

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Hard times at the Washington Post

The once proud Washington Post gets into bed with a right-wing billionaire and fills its news pages with his agenda

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Six trucks of explosives 'disappear' in Yemen

Fears of a terrorist strike against Western embassies in Yemen have grown amid claims a convoy of lorries laden with explosives had been smuggled into the country's capital city, Sana'a.

By Adrian Blomfield in Sana'a

 

 

In an apparently botched surveillance operation, militants driving six trucks filled with weapons and ordnance succeeded in giving security forces the slip as they entered the city, according to local media.

The revelations came as western diplomatic missions in Sana'a went into lockdown following threats from al-Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, which has taken responsibility for a failed attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Both the British and American embassies, considered the most high-profile targets in the city, remained closed for a second day. France and the Czech Republic also shut their embassies, while Spain, Germany and Japan announced restrictions on public access to their missions.

The identity of those who smuggled the weapons contingent into Sana'a has not been disclosed, and it is unclear if its disappearance is linked to al-Qaeda's increasingly powerful Yemeni branch, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP)

Although AQAP released a statement on Sunday urging its followers to kill all Western diplomats on the Arab Peninsula, western officials have declined to divulge whether or not threats of a specific nature have been made.

Diplomats dismissed speculation that the vanishing convoy could presage an imminent attack on Western interests in the city.

"These reports have nothing to do with the reason embassies were shut," one said.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser, has spoken of "indications" that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on a Western target in Sana'a, possibly the US embassy, which was twice attacked in 2008, killing 19.

It is not the first time that lorries carrying arms have disappeared in Yemen, and sources suggested that the weapons may well have been bound for tribal rebels in the North. The insurgents, who are Shia, are regarded as apostates by al-Qaeda, although some observers say there may be a limited alliance of convenience between the two.

But the disappearance of so large a shipment of explosives will only enhance the febrile atmosphere in Sana'a and raise fresh concerns about Yemen's competence in dealing with the al-Qaeda threat.

A combination of corruption, instability, poverty and lawlessness has helped turn Yemen into fertile breeding ground for al-Qaeda. Amid warnings that the country could soon emerge as a "new Afghanistan", Gordon Brown this weekend gave warning that Yemen was becoming a "failing state."

Keen to demonstrate its commitment to fighting terror, the Yemeni government said its forces had killed two suspected al-Qaeda members in an operation in the mountainous Arhab region, 25 miles north of the capital.

The raid happened close to the scene of government air strikes on Dec 17 that killed three members of an AQAP cell who were allegedly plotting to blow up the British embassy in Sana'a.

The main target of Monday's attack, identified as Mohammed Ahmed al-Hanaq, managed to escape.

Observers in Sana'a described Mr Hanaq as a tribal chief who has only loose connections to al-Qaeda.

AQAP has managed to establish a foothold in several parts of Yemen largely be paying tribute to local tribes who complain they have been marginalised and impoverished by the Yemeni government.

 

 

 

Since the failed bombing attempt against Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas, the Obama Administration’s public rhetoric has slid from its immortal opening error—“the system worked”—back toward the American mainstream of signaling toward terrorists. Since the Reagan Administration, this has generally involved public resolve and threats of retaliation, to reassure Americans that their government is on the case and to warn terrorists that they inevitably will face death or capture if they plot against the United States. On Saturday, Obama spoke to Americans and presumably also to Al Qaeda recruits in Yemen when he threatened, “All those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know: You too will be held to account.”

The language caught my ear because over the holiday break I have been reading an excellent academic study of American strategic communication toward Al Qaeda, “U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signaling and the Terrorist World-View,” by Joshua Alexander Geltzer, who is now a law student at Yale, after earning a doctoral degree in war studies at King’s College, London, under the tutelage of James Gow, one of the better academic security analysts of his generation. Warning: The book is very expensive; probably best for those who can charge it to the office somehow.

The purpose of Geltzer’s study is to analyze American communication with Al Qaeda, by deed and word, particularly since 9/11, and to explore the degree to which American signaling to terrorists has been self-conscious; what the hypotheses behind this communication strategy seem to be; how the strategy has conceptualized the intended terrorist audience; and, of course, whether it has been effective. (I don’t think I’m giving away the ending by reporting that the author’s conclusion is … um, no.)

Geltzer not only reviewed the public record—speeches by Presidents Clinton and Bush, and by other key actors such as former Vice-President Cheney—but he also conducted a number of on-the-record interviews with intelligence officials and counterterrorism policymakers from both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Among other things, he has produced a fascinating and chilling thread of narrative history of the Iraq war’s casus belli. He documents richly the consensus among Bush Administration decision-makers, outside of a few realists such as Richard Armitage, that among other purposes, it was necessary to invade Iraq in order to send a general deterrent signal to all terrorists in the Middle East. Geltzer quotes Henry Kissinger’s rationale for advising Bush to carry out the Iraq invasion: “We had to go in there … to make clear that challenging the United States had disastrous consequences…. Afghanistan was not enough to make that point.”

To a great extent, Geltzer argues, the Bush Administration fashioned its terrorist signaling strategy in reaction to what Cheney, in particular, considered to be the “provocative weakness” of Clinton Administration signaling; that is, Cheney and others of like mind truly believed that the United States had meaningfully invited 9/11 by failing to respond more forcefully to the 1998 Al Qaeda attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa and the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. (Al Qaeda’s rhetoric does take note of the American withdrawal from Lebanon during the nineteen-eighties, ordered by President Reagan, and America’s retreat from Somalia, ordered by President Clinton.) At the same time, however, Bush Administration signaling contained much continuity from Clinton-era signaling, Geltzer shows. In this combination of change and continuity, he finds that the Bush Administration’s “basic framework for counter-terrorist signaling” involved ten elements:

taking action, signaling a change, using force, demonstrating capability, showing resolve, exhibiting relentlessness, intimidating state sponsors, promoting democracy, visibly hardening defenses and showing success.

Geltzer notes that it is “worth considering” what sort of audience would have been most responsive to the Bush Administration’s approach:

Such an audience would have been deterred or dissuaded by an active America, and intimidated by a changed America. That audience would have been eager to avoid America’s use of military force, and would have been impressed by America’s demonstration of its massive capability. Resolve on America’s part would have suggested to that audience that opposing the U.S.A. was bound to prove futile, and relentlessness on America’s part would have led that audience to seek any way to avoid America’s fury. America’s focus on state sponsors suggest that the audience would have possessed a state-centric perspective, and America’s efforts to promote democracy imply an audience characterized by a democratic vision of government…

What type of audience do these characteristics describe?….The audience would have been, or resembled, a state… [and even more so] the U.S.A. itself. That is, the audience that appears to have been in the minds of American policymakers as they crafted their counter-terrorist signals was one akin to America as audience.

This is a rhetorical tour de force. Perhaps it’s also a little too neat to be completely convincing. Terrorists do interact with states, including Al Qaeda terrorists. Terrorists can be deterred and intimidated. Al Qaeda operatives have certainly changed their decision-making at times because of the hardened defenses they confront, notwithstanding their repeated return to civil aviation, even as that task gets harder. But as a breath-catching take on the problem of unexamined, ineffective, domestic-driven American signaling to terrorists, whether of the nascent Obama or entrenched Cheney type, Geltzer’s work is very impressive.

Obama is obviously a gifted communicator; he is also said to be an enthusiastic poker player. Surely we have a President who is qualified to think through more productively than his predecessors the conundrums of his own signaling, intended and unintended, to the terrorists whose actions will do much to shape his Presidency.

BY Rich O'Malley
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

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Peter Moore: family of dead hostage criticise 'deal with terrorists'

The family of Jason Swindlehurst, one of the men killed after being taken hostage in Iraq with Peter Moore, have criticised the US government for allegedly doing a deal with terrorists.

Former official confirms CIA bomber was Jordanian

By PAMELA HESS and ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press Writers

Monday, January 4, 2010

WASHINGTON— A former senior intelligence official is confirming that the suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian doctor recruited by Jordanian intelligence to support U.S. efforts against al-Qaida.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees - four officers and three contracted security guards - and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The former senior intelligence official confirmed an NBC News report Monday that the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. He was arrested over a year ago by Jordanian intelligence, and was thought to have been flipped to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaida.

Lupica: Cheney's rants vs. Obama politicize war on terror

Dick Cheney looks at a near tragedy on Christmas and sees opportunity. He doesn't just sound like some old crank in the park. He sounds like a bum.

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By Richard Sisk and David Saltonstall
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Monday, January 4th 2010, 1:08 PM

The unnamed Transportation Security Administration guard apparently failed to see the man enter the secure exit-way at the airport's bustling Terminal C around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, agency officials said.

All that's known - based on a review of security video - is that the wrong-way walker left the terminal through another exit about 20 minutes after he entered, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis told The Daily News on Monday.

She added that it's no longer a question of whether the sleepy-eyed guard will be disciplined. "It's more at what level of discipline," Davis told The News.

TSA officials said the agency only learned of the breach after a sharp-eyed bystander - who was waiting in the exit area to pick up a passenger - noticed the man walk into the secure area.

Agency officials quickly confirmed the breach by looking at security video. Other video appears to show the same man leaving the terminal through another exit as quietly as he entered, although it took until about 7:45 p.m. on Sunday to put those pieces together.

The man - who appears on the video to be of Asian descent - remains unidentified, officials said.

Security officials quickly evacuated the terminal on Sunday and re-screened several thousand passengers already cleared for take-off. A search of the terminal, which is used mostly by Continental Airlines, turned up nothing suspicious.

The security measures delayed hundreds of flights, causing back-ups that airline officials were still working to clear Monday morning.

"We are doing a good job catching up," said Continental spokeswoman Julie King.

The security snafu comes as the TSA has announced that passengers flying to the U.S. from nations regarded as state sponsors of terrorism and countries of interest would be subject to enhanced screening.

Civil rights hero caught in corruption probe to begin serving sentence

"The man has now been destroyed, politically and economically."

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China - handle with care

The emotional condemnation that followed the execution of Akmal Shaikh is exactly the wrong way to deal with the world's next superpower, says Malcolm Moore in Shanghai.

By Malcolm Moore

Comments 77 | Comment on this article

East meets West: Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao in Beijing last November Photo: Getty

The reaction to Akmal Shaikh’s execution by the British government has been a fiasco that must have made diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai wince. From a British perspective, the outrage over Mr Shaikh’s execution may have seemed justified. China must improve its human-rights record if it wants to be a responsible player on the world stage. Executing a 53-year-old man of questionable sanity and burying him in an unmarked grave in a remote and icy cemetery in Urumqi appears unjust in our eyes. Bluntly ignoring Gordon Brown’s entreaties makes China seem cold and defiant.

But from a Chinese point of view, there was little to be done. A personality disorder or paranoia do not qualify as mental illness in the eyes of the court. And Britons in China must be subject to Chinese law.

The fact that Mr Shaikh was the first European to be executed in China for half a century shows that, until now, China has often allowed foreigners to remain outside the law as it sought to curry favour with more powerful nations. But no longer.

“Today, when the British drug dealer violated the law on our land, we can openly and rightfully punish him without any mercy. We don’t need to follow the orders of others any more,” remarked one commenter on a Chinese web forum.

It may be 170 years since Britain subjected China to colonial humiliation during the Opium wars, but the memory of red-faced foreigners banging their fists on tables and telling the Chinese what to do is still keenly felt. Despite its apparent strength, the country remains incredibly sensitive to the way it is treated by foreign governments.

As it takes the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council this month, it is easy to forget that the country was a global pariah just two decades ago. After the massacre at Tiananmen Square, foreign governments cut off diplomatic ties with Beijing, imposed sanctions and snuffed out the early flickerings of the attempt to rejoin the world after decades of Maoist isolation.

Under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, China had been opening up. The country’s unspoken support for the US had spurred the collapse of the Soviet Union. “China and the US had been sharing both geopolitical and military secrets,” recalls Gao Zhikai, Deng’s former translator. “Because of that co-operation, China was following a US line.” The US had even been selling China weapons, both Sikorsky helicopters and guidance systems for jet aircraft.

The events of 1989, however, turned China into a new target for the US as it searched for an ideological enemy in the post Cold War era, even if, in practice, Chinese communism was a world away from Soviet Marxism.

“Until the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was a very sensitive, difficult and uncertain time for China,” said Mr Gao. “There was no eagerness to rebuild a relationship or treat China as a partner, and there were no summit meetings until Jiang Zemin met Bill Clinton in Seattle in 1993.” After 2001, of course, the US found a new ideological enemy in Islamic terrorism, and China was a willing partner in the fight.

The Chinese public, for its part, hardened against the West after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by Nato planes in 1999. A skilful propaganda campaign convinced the population that the West was up to its old tricks and seeking to contain the rise of a potential new superpower.

The Chinese leadership genuinely believes this. Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, has warned that the US has strengthened its relationships with Vietnam, India and Taiwan in order to “put pressure points on us from the east, south and west”. More Chinese outrage followed at the protests against the Olympic torch in Paris. The sabotage was seen as a deliberate attempt to ruin China’s big moment, the Beijing Olympics.

Regular bouts of hectoring from the US and the UK over human-rights abuses, the irresponsibility of China’s position at Copenhagen, or the execution of Akmal Shaikh have merely confirmed the suspicion that the West believes it can boss China around.

China is now well placed to be the world’s next superpower. Its admission to the World Trade Organisation in 2000 launched a decade of frantic trading that has seen its gross domestic product rise from below that of Spain and Italy to overtake Japan’s, making it the world’s second-largest economy. By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, it will overtake the US and become the largest.

More than 250 million people have been lifted out of poverty in just three decades and a sprawling middle class has emerged. China is the world’s largest car market, and rich Chinese bought £6 billion of luxury goods this year, a 12 per cent rise as the rest of the world slumped. One of last year’s biggest catchphrases was: “Money is not a problem,” mocking the country’s vulgar nouveau riche for flaunting their wealth.

The financial crisis revealed that the US is in hock to the Chinese government to the tune of $1.7 trillion dollars. The new global order was cast in clear relief when Barack Obama visited Beijing in November to ask if China, as one of America’s largest trading partners, would revalue its currency to make the terms of trade more equitable. He got nothing in response.

While the West has been crippled by the financial crisis, China has hardly been touched. Its banks were already nationalised, and were quickly ordered to lend money. The resulting wave of cash boosted confidence in the economy and helped to generate growth of around nine per cent in 2009. By contrast, living standards in the UK retreated to pre-2005 levels.

China has grown so rapidly that its leaders have been pushed to the front of the world stage without much experience of international diplomacy. “Within the four corners of its country, China is a world in itself,” said Mr Gao. “It has a history of being introverted. Just look at the position of the foreign minister. He is not a member of the [ruling] politburo. There are two or three dozen officials more senior than him,” he added. Among the top leaders, only Li Keqiang and Li Yuanchao can speak English.

For the past 30 years, Chinese leaders have been following Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of tao guang yang hui, a cautiousness that is best translated as the opposite of chutzpah. They have not sought the limelight, listening more than speaking and to trying to be humble.

Now they have been thrust into the spotlight, China’s leaders are going about the job in a workmanlike fashion. Unlike their predecessors, the current generation does not make grand geopolitical gestures. When they travel abroad, it is strictly business.

Africa, South America and the developing world have discovered that China is a dependable, predictable and responsible partner, as long as its “hot buttons” of Tibet, Taiwan and human rights are not pushed. China is unlikely ever to cement a “Group of Two” arrangement with the US, as some have speculated. There will be no G2 because China fears alienating its smaller partners.

The lack of understanding on both sides is immense. This year, for example, only seven Chinese novels were published in English in the US, a sign of how little appetite there is to learn about China and its culture. As a result, patronising stereotypes still hold sway.

In turn, few Chinese, know anything about Britain beyond its colonial history and its industrial revolution. To seize the opportunity of becoming a trusted partner of China, Britain must not be seen as a bullying or ignorant power. What is needed is a genuine understanding of how Beijing works, a desire to do business, and a tone that emphasises that, while we may not agree with all its policies, we still respect the country.

 

 

Al-Qaeda ‘groomed Abdulmutallab in London’

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Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrorism ally

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 Alabama Democrat Casts His Lot With G.O.P.

Many of those who meet mornings at Church's Chicken in Andalusia, Ala., don't like Barack Obama but are fond of Bobby Bright.

"Among the men who gather every morning at 6 o’clock at the Church’s Chicken here on Three Notch Street, there is general agreement that the Obama administration is doing a very bad job of running the country. And the stakes are as high, as one coffee drinker put it, as the survival of the country’s culture, economy and way of life."

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Pete Souza/The White House

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Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism

By PETER BAKER

Recent threats have put more focus on the battles President Obama, pictured with his adviser John Brennan, faces fighting a far-flung terror network.

Al-Qaeda shifts into dangerous new territory

The key to success against the jihadists will always be good intelligence.

Iran: the truth the UK/US cannot admit

Ayad Jamal Aldin:

Official denials of involvement in kidnapping should not mask Tehran's growing power.

"Mr Moore was taken not by Iraqi criminals looking for a ransom, but by politically motivated forces with a bigger agenda. Those forces are Iranian: their agenda is to make Iraq a state that is Iran in all but name."

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Beware the militant engineers

Is there a connection between the mindset of those who study engineering as a subject, and violent extremism?

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Obama talks tough on terror as Iran raises nuclear stakes

Withering criticisms from the right wing spurs the US President into belligerent rhetoric as threats from around the world mount up

President Barack Obama took on his Republican critics over national security by declaring that the United States remained at war with terrorists and vowing to strike at those behind the Christmas Day airplane bomb attempt.

The move marked a dramatic shift in tone from the White House, which has endured a week of withering attacks from Republicans who said it had mismanaged the response to the failed attack.

Obama used his weekly radio address to respond to comments by former Vice-President Dick Cheney, accusing him of pretending America was not at war. Obama insisted he had said America was at war from his first day in office: "On that day, I also made it very clear that our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred, and that we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country."

To back up his hard line, Obama also laid the blame for the Christmas Day attack at the lap of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. He said the group had equipped and sent out the Nigerian-bomb bomber Umar Abdulmutallab and would now be brought to justice. "All those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know: you too will be held to account," Obama said.

It is unlikely, however, that Obama's stance will do much to appease his Republican critics. America's right wing has been eager to attack him on a range of issues from Iran to Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan. Yet at the same time Obama is also coming under pressure from the left wing of his own party and liberal groups which see him as continuing too many of the Bush policies.

Yemen has now emerged as an unwelcome new front. America has been providing support for the Yemeni government in its battle with Islamic militants, but the country has become more unstable and terrorist attacks from there more frequent. Before the attempted aircraft bombing, a radical Yemeni cleric was also linked to the recent shooting at Fort Hood where a Muslim American killed his fellow soldiers. The issue has been further complicated by the fact that several former Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo Bay have been linked to the recent aircraft attack.

Many of the criticisms levelled at Obama have had a strong echo of those that followed 11 September, 2001. Critics have pointed out that much key information was known about the attackers, but had not been co-ordinated among intelligence agencies. Indeed reforms brought in by Bush, such as creating the Department of Homeland Security, may have made the problem worse. "We are still having the co-ordinating problems that we had before 9/11. There is too much bureaucracy," said Ivan Eland, director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute think-tank.

Obama has already ordered a review of procedures for intelligence gathering and information sharing, and will hold a meeting of top staff on Tuesday. In his radio address, he said he would ensure there was more effective co-ordination and that people would be held more accountable for their actions. "Let us ask the questions that need to be asked. Let us make the changes that need to be made. Let us debate the best way to protect the country we all love," he said.

One of the few brighter spots in Obama's troubled national security landscape is North Korea. Though relations with the nuclear-armed rogue state are always unpredictable, recent signs point to a potential thaw in relations. A US envoy recently visited the country and Pyongyang's annual New Year's message expressed a desire for a peace treaty with the US and South Korea.

~Iran, however, remains problematic. Tehran's quest for a domestic nuclear programme, and international efforts to prevent it from developing weapons, will this week enter into a new phase of diplomatic brinkmanship.

Last week, tens of thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime demonstrated in Tehran in organised protests against foreign interference in Iran's affairs.

Less remarked on was the fact that a deadline for Iran to accept a UN-brokered deal passed on Thursday and raised the prospect of a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran. The country is already under three sets of UN sanctions for its programme of uranium enrichment, the process that can eventually lead to making the key components of an atomic bomb.

Instead a senior Iranian figure said the west had just one month to come up with a better deal for it to swap its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. The international community had to decide whether it will accept Iran's conditions, otherwise "Tehran will enrich uranium to a higher level," Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, was quoted as saying on state television. "This is an ultimatum," he added.

Many experts, however, think any resolution to the situation is unlikely. Critics of Tehran have alleged that the regime is using negotiations as a delaying tactic while it pursues its nuclear weapons ambitions. They say that much of the programme remains shrouded in secrecy and doubt the country's stated peaceful intentions, accusing it instead of wanting to build a bomb.

Israel, which has been repeatedly threatened by Iran, has said it will not tolerate Iran becoming a nuclear power and Israeli hawks have often raised the prospect of using a military strike to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Most western diplomats believe such an attack would be a disaster that could ignite a much wider Middle Eastern conflict.