As we recently noted in the case of Iran, the Bush administration seems divided between Pentagon hardliners who seek a military solution and State Department pragmatists who would pursue a peaceful "regime change" scenario in Syria. But these are not mutually exclusive options, of course. In most recent cases of Washington effecting a power transfer in a targeted country—from Nicaragua in 1989 to Yugoslavia in 2000—a combination of external military pressure and internal political support was brought to bear.

Its amazing how much the New York Times can say without directly saying it. In today's edition are twin front-page stories on Darfur and Chad. Read together they convey much more about US interests in the Sahel than either states explicitly.

While the world media have largely ignored it, readers of WW4 REPORT will be aware that since last spring NATO has been providing air support for the African Union "peacekeepers" in Darfur. Now, the Times reports, Bush is calling for an expansion of NATO's role in the conflict:

The Niger Delta, in Nigeria's south, has long been beset by ethnic struggles over distribution of the region's oil wealth. Now the north, where Muslim-Christian tensions have long simmered, is boiling over—ostensibly over the cartoon controversy, but one wonders what local Nigerian Christians have to do with Danish cartoonists.

With the world's attention distracted by some off-color cartoons, it looks like we've got a little domestic Abu Ghraib developing in Los Angeles. The official hand-wringing about "core values" is as nauseating as it is requisite. From the LA Times, Feb. 18:

More than 100 inmates at a Los Angeles County jail were ordered to strip naked, had their mattresses taken away and were left with only blankets to cover themselves for a day as Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officials tried to quell racially charged violence that has plagued the jail system for nearly two weeks.

Indonesia's Environment Ministry is evidently caught between ecologists and nationalists demanding a tougher line on foreign corporate polluters and a judiciary that seems beholden to the corporate shadow government. The New York Times noted Feb. 17 that under the terms of the $30 million out-of-court settlement (termed a "goodwill agreement"), the government will drop its $135 suit filed against Newmont Mining of Colorado after villagers near its gold mine at Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi developed tumors, rashes and other illnesses caused by mine waste. From the Jakarta Post, Feb. 18:

Readers will recall that this is the same James E. Hansen who was threatened with "dire consequences" from the Bush administration's ideological enforcers at NASA if he continued to call for action to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. From the UK Independent, Feb. 17:

A new adittion to the alphabet soup of armed rebel groups in Africa's most oil-rich region: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). From the BBC, Feb. 17:

A Nigerian militant commander in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta has told the BBC his group is declaring "total war" on all foreign oil interests.

From the UK Telegraph, Feb. 12:

US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites
Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.