Congress is turning into the latest battleground pitting Israel and Greece on one side and Turkey on the other.

Tensions between U.S. allies Israel and Turkey have been high since Israel intercepted a Turkish vessel defying the embargo on Gaza two years ago, resulting in the death of nine Turkish activists. Now Israel is drawing closer to Turkish archrival Greece, with direct repercussions on Capitol Hill.

Last week, House Foreign Affairs Committee member Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) launched the Congressional Hellenic-Israeli Alliance, a new congressional caucus Bilirakis says aims to focus on the “flourishing relationship between the United States, Greece, Israel, and Cyprus.” 

In a statement Monday, Bilirakis applauded Israeli President Shimon Peres's trip to Greece this week, during which Peres slammed Turkey's interference in Cyprus.

Read more...

The attacks on civilian and military targets in central and eastern Afghanistan Tuesday left 10 people dead and dozens wounded.

Comments

The senators ask China's ambassador to get his country to crack down on companies producing fake IDs.

Iran is holding the United States responsible for the safety of 48 Iranians captured over the weekend by Syrian rebels, Voice of America reports.

The Foreign Ministry told the Swiss envoy in Tehran, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, that the Obama administration should use its leverage with the rebels to secure the Iranians' releases, according to state media reports. Iran says the kidnapped group consists of religious pilgrims, but the Syrian rebels say they are members of the Revolutionary Guard on a “reconnaissance mission.”

Read more...

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that the United States should provide Syrian rebels with weapons. 

"I'd like to see us take a side," Lieberman said in an interview with CBS's "This Morning."

"I don't think it's enough ... for us to say Assad should go, Assad's a dictator ... We have a moral responsibility and a strategic opportunity to do more than what we're doing there," he said. 

"So what would I do," he continued, "I'd embrace the cause of the opposition to Assad; I'd begin to work with them closely. I'd give them weapons — that's the key."

"Standard Chartered operated as a rogue institution," says a report that found the bank helped Iran hide $250 billion.

“Your statements in Jerusalem regarding the growth of the Palestinian and Israeli economies were inaccurate and misleading,” their petition states.

Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) left for Moscow on Monday as part of a three-nation trip during which he'll press for extending his signature Nunn-Lugar disarmament agreement, which expires next year.

Lugar is also slated to travel to Ukraine and Georgia as part of his annual oversight visits to verify the implementation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. He authored the program with then-Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) in 1991 to provide countries of the former Soviet Union with funding and expertise to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction programs.

“My visit comes at a time of considerable stress in our bilateral relationship with Russia, great challenges in Ukraine and tremendous opportunity in Georgia,” he said in a statement announcing the trip. “The constant basis for cooperation against existential threats in all three nations has been the Nunn-Lugar program, which has endured despite great differences and dramatic changes.

Guest Commentary

Comments