Noah Shachtman reports:
To say this complicates the Obama administration’s diplomatic outreach is to put it mildly. This administration — in fairness, not unlike the last few years of the Bush administration — seems prepared to make an endless series of concessions to Tehran in order to secure a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue. Yet despite these repeated overtures, the Iranians refuse to budge even an inch and instead make announcements of more centrifuges and new missiles. Now they’re launching airstrikes in Iraq. Will this be just another agenda item for the coming summit? And the airstrikes expose another problem for the Obama administration: how can all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq when the country cannot protect its own airspace. The U.S. Air Force will need to remain in Iraq long past the 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
