The United States is militarily ready to carry out a strike on Iran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon if international pressure fails, American ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said to an Israeli audience this week. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that “all options are on the table” to deal with an Iranian nuclear threat, but Shapiro’s comments went a step further in discussing the military’s preparations for the possibility.

“It would be preferable to solve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro told representatives of Israel’s Bar Association on Tuesday.

“But that doesn’t mean that option isn’t fully available. Not just available, it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready,” he said. [Read more...]

If Greece were a man, he would have aged decades in the past two weeks.

The grey hairs would be sprouting, the wrinkles showing. It has been an extraordinarily tumultuous time here.

This country has overcome so much in its long and rich history. But even Greeks are bewildered by what has happened in the last fortnight.

Roll back to 6 May: election day beneath a beautiful early summer sun. As predicted, an austerity-weary nation seized the chance to punish the much-reviled political establishment. [Read more...]

Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time.  Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things.  Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time.  Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict — all tied to energy supplies — that have made news in just the first few months of 2012: [Read more...]