Almost three decades ago, a group of radical Islamist students, dressed in army fatigues or covered in scarves and black chadors, forced their way into the American embassy in Tehran. According to some accounts, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then a student at a second-tier technical college in Tehran, was invited to join the hostage takers. He declined, saying he would join only if they would also occupy the Soviet embassy in Tehran. “No to the West, No to the East” was in those days the much-touted slogan of the regime.

Kabul, Afghanistan 

The spectacle of Afghanistan’s presidential elections seems to be finally entering its final act. Pulling out of the runoff race at the last minute, Abdullah Abdullah has cleared the way for Hamed Karzai to be the winner by default. 

Both men appear to have achieved many, if not all, of their original goals. Karzai, of course, has retained his seat for another five years. Abdullah, the underdog, has denied Karzai the much-needed legitimacy that a second round of voting was supposed to confer. Now the Afghan president will be serving under the cloud created by the massive fraud that characterized the first round of voting in August.

House Minority Leader John Boehner recently released a memo arguing, among other things, that the House Democrats' health care bill would result in "massive cuts to Medicare benefits for seniors" and "a negative impact on seniors' benefits and choices."

It was Halloween 2001, and Kennesaw State freshman Nick Ayers was sitting anxiously in an Atlanta airplane hangar. A friend had recommended him for a campaign position with Republican state senator Sonny Perdue, who was mounting a long-shot gubernatorial run against Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes. The portly, middle-aged politician disembarked his Bellanca Super Viking and, as Ayers recounts the story, walked down the stairs holding a lid-less cup of coffee. Eager to make a good first impression, the nervous blonde teenager extended his hand for a firm shake.

An Iranian student criticizes Supreme Leader Khaminei to his face, in public:

It was near the end of a meeting Wednesday between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a group of university students when the man who is Iran's highest political and spiritual authority asked if there were any other questions.

In New Jersey, any candidate for high office can count on getting smeared over taxes, corruption, the economy, or all of the above. But in this fall's hard-fought gubernatorial race, an unlikely issue has popped up amidst the usual mud-slinging: the portly physique of Republican challenger Chris Christie. Ever since Jon Corzine released his now-infamous attack ad, in which a disdainful voiceover claims Christie improperly "threw his weight around" as a U.S.

Francisco Toro and Juan Nagel write the Venezuelan news blog Caracas Chronicles. A version of this post originally appeared there.

The Honduran tragicomedy that has consumed the hemisphere's diplomats for months is at an end (read the details here). Barring the unforeseeable, which is always an iffy thing to do in Honduras, the coupster is out, the mercurial elected president is back in (pending a face-saving vote by Congress and the Supreme Court), and an election to replace him will be held on November 29, as planned.

In light of all this, who was the winner in the Honduran crisis?

General Stanley McChrystal's request to send more troops to Afghanistan has induced sticker shock for many Americans--including, apparently, President Obama. The integrated counterinsurgency, or COIN, strategy that McChrystal wants to pursue has many components: protecting Afghan civilians, rapidly expanding the Afghan army and police, reforming government, providing economic development assistance, weaning Taliban fighters and leaders away from Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, reconciling them into the new government, and targeting those who refuse. This makes it a demanding strategy that McChrystal reportedly believes will require providing at least an additional 10,000 to 40,000 U.S. troops and more than doubling existing Afghan forces to a total of 400,000 indigenous soldiers and police. (Full disclosure: I served as a member of General McChrystal's assessment team in June and July 2009, but I do not speak for his command, and the views expressed here are strictly my own.) This price tag has further galvanized opposition to a war whose support was already fading fast.

On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.

Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young man, Zazi--who was born in Afghanistan and spent part of his childhood in Pakistan before moving to the United States at the age of 14--kibitzed easily with the counter staff, joking that he had to buy such large quantities of hair products because he "had a lot of girlfriends."

An interesting article from the NYT's Adam Nossiter on how, with Obama now in the White House, the Guinean junta is wary of getting on the wrong side of the U.S.:

NYALA, Darfur -- When Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March, he responded by expelling 13 international aid agencies from Darfur and disbanding three other domestic relief groups. Khartoum claims the organizations were sharing information with the ICC, which both the groups and the court deny. With the void left by the ousted organizations, the United Nations has instituted emergency measures to help provide food, water, and other vital aid. But one service remains virtually decimated: support for rape survivors.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explains why he opposes the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform bill:

“This partisan Finance Committee proposal will never see the Senate floor since the real bill will be written by Democrat leaders in a closed-to-the-public conference room somewhere in the Capitol."

Alex Jones is a husky man with short sandy hair, weary eyes, baby cheeks, and the kind of deep, gravelly voice made for horror-movie trailers. And it’s horror he has in mind. "Your New World Order will fall!" he screams through a megaphone at the shiny façade of a nondescript office building. "Humanity will defeat you!"

Return to Afghanistan with a group of journalists, escorted by the French defense minister, Hervé Morin. A limited view: We only see valleys in Surobi and Kapisa. But an invaluable glimpse, nevertheless, because it counters what is heard almost everywhere.

First chapter, Tora, a small fort sitting on stones, some distance from Kabul. Welcome by Colonel Benoît Durieux, leader of the regiment and an intellectual, author of the excellent Rereading Clausewitz's On War. Movement toward Surobi, where an assembly of malik, the sages of the region, waits for us to join a ceremony opening a small school for boys. The number of armored vehicles mobilized for the trip, the extreme nervousness of the men, as well as the low-flying Caracal helicopter that brought us here early this morning, at times hovering only ten meters above the ground--all this leaves no doubt about the seriousness of the threat. But there is also no doubt about the fact that the military's strategy relies on a simple idea that has little to do with the caricature drawn by my country's media: to show that we are, of course, there to wage war, but also that the stakes of this war are the security, peace, and access to care and education of a population for whom the coalition is an ally.

More atrocious details from the Guinean junta's recent crackdown on protesters—of women knifed, whipped, and raped repeatedly by soldiers—surfaced in the Times yesterday. Until recently, the former French colony of approximately 10 million had a reputation for being among the most stable of its West African neighbors.

The Iranian regime has made headlines this week with its announcement that it will allow inspections into its recently discovered enrichment site in Qom, and its agreement, albeit ambiguously, to allow enrichment to be handled by Russia or France. Less covered, but actually more important, are recent statements from the Iranian opposition against the nuclear weapons program--warning Western leaders not to be fooled by Ahmdinejad’s latest concessions, and actually offering a viable alternative to solve the current nuclear standoff.

Yet one more reason Obama shouldn't go to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics: Chicago doesn't need him, since, judging from this report, it looks like Oprah's got things under control:

``Everyone is mesmerized by Oprah,'' said Charmaine Crooks, an Olympian and former International Olympic Committee member from Canada.

Immediately following Obama at the lectern here at the U.N. is the Libyan "leader of the revolution" (as he was introduced), who has emerged from his bizarre run-in with Donald Trump--and the interference of angry protesters--to deliver a predictably kooky speech.

Would that every day brought a story so entertaining:

A tent on Donald Trump's estate in suburban New York City was dismantled Wednesday, and Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy apparently will not be showing up there at all.

The dismantling came just after Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said the Secret Service had told him Gadhafi would be coming to Trump's property.

After much anticipation of this week's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, early reports indicate that President Obama spent most of his time "sternly urging Israeli and Palestinian leaders to do more to make Mideast peace talks possible." It's an unimpressive message from a president that has been urging the sides "to do more" for quite a while now, to no avail. Israel has refused the "total settlement freeze" that U.S. officials were demanding, Palestinians have rebuffed all attempts to bring them back to the negotiating table, and Arab leaders have shown no real interest in contributing "gestures" to move the process along.

In some ways, Obama repeated today some of the mistakes that have spoiled his efforts thus far. For no obvious reason--and clearly irritated by both Netanyahu and Abbas--the president had summoned the sides to this mini-summit and lectured them like rebellious children. No statement was agreed on, so he made one on his own. He demanded final status negotiations, despite the Israeli government's belief that interim agreements and gradual progress better fit the current situation. He showed little sympathy for Abbas' reluctance to negotiate, despite the fact that Abbas couldn't even attend this meaningless meeting without being subjected to a barrage of criticism at home. (The best advice may have come from a Hamas spokesman I heard on Israeli radio this week, who suggested that Abbas meet with the group's leader, Khalid Mishal, to stem the internal Palestinian conflict before even thinking about peace with Israel.)

Last week, Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a taunting statement warning America about its prospects in Afghanistan. Here's a choice excerpt:

Shiberghan, Afghanistan (one day before the election)—There was no mistaking the general’s “castle.” Its pastel-colored two-storey walls and lapis cupolas shocking amidst the drabness of the surrounding neighborhood. Somewhere inside the compound was General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the most notorious of Afghanistan’s warlords. In almost three decades as a militia leader, Dostum has earned a reputation for ruthless brutality towards enemies, as well as an opportunist’s disregard for alliances, which have shifted without notice. Days earlier, he had returned from Turkey after a yearlong absence brought on by charges that he had his men beat up a powerful rival. But a last-second deal with President Karzai in exchange for his ethnic Uzbek vote bank (he claimed he’d deliver two million votes) allowed Dostum to come back, offering a vital shot in the arm for the president hours before Afghans went to vote.

There's chatter among the political media today about Fox News commentator Glenn Beck's having successfully nailed green-jobs czar Van Jones' scalp to his wall. Politico went so far as to note that the episode "confirmed Beck's stature as the administration's most potent foe."

Few would dispute that, in recent months, Beck has emerged as the shiniest star in the conservative firmament, garnering more buzz than O'Reilly or even The Great and Powerful Rush. And, once again, I am impressed by how neatly his rise captures the ongoing psychological devolution within the conservative movement.

Much of Rush's political success has long lay in his sneering humor. He traffics in nasty, beyond-the pale jokes about all those who don't share his views. He is snide, he is smirking, and he has carefully cultivated a swaggering, cigar-sucking persona aimed at delighting the no-nonsense, tough-guy self-image of so many in the Daddy Party.

I'm a bit late getting to this, but over the holiday weekend famous Iraq war opponent Howard Dean visited Fox News Sunday and weighed in on Afghanistan:

CHRIS WALLACE: Governor Dean, the president will reportedly decide in the next few weeks whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan. As a leader of the anti-war movement when it came to Iraq, will the liberal wing of the Democratic Party will you support the president if he deepens our commitment in that war?