The end of America's combat mission, after seven and a half costly years, has raised questions that will provide fodder for argument for a long time to come: Was it worth it? And who, if anyone, won?

It's too early to answer the first question, according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a man of sober judgment. "It really requires a historian's perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run ... How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen."

For a sizeable group of Middle East experts, the second question is easier to answer than the first. "So, who won the war in Iraq? Iran," says the headline over an analysis by scholar Mohammed Bazzi for the Council on Foreign relations, a New York-based think-tank. His argument: "The U.S. ousted Tehran's sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, from power. Then Washington helped install a Shi'ite government for the first time in Iraq's modern history.

"As U.S. troops became mired in fighting an insurgency and containing a civil war, Iran extended its influence over all of Iraq's Shi'ite factions." As a consequence, U.S. influence has been waning, Iran's has been rising, and there are predictions that Iran will fill the vacuum created by the drawdown of U.S. troops to 50,000 who will "advise and assist" the Iraqis.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has formed a committee to seek peace talks with the Taliban, his office has said.

It follows the endorsement by tribal leaders in June of a plan to engage militants in a reconciliation process.

The Taliban, who were ousted from power in 2001, have been fighting to overthrow the US-backed government and expel foreign troops from Afghanistan.

The formation of the High Peace Council was "a significant step towards peace talks", Mr Karzai's office said.

MOSCOW, Sep 4, 2010 (IPS) - Efforts by the U.S. and Russian governments to move speedily towards the abolition of strategic nuclear weapons have hit stumbling blocks and continue to generate debates among experts about the practicality of achieving a nuclear- free world in the near future.

The main point, experts say, is that Russia and the U.S. have only taken weak steps to fulfil the objectives of the first strategic arms reduction treaty signed in 1991.

"Russia assigns significant military utility to its nuclear arsenal and so has less interest than the U.S. in promoting nuclear disarmament. For instance, it maintains several thousand tactical nuclear weapons in western Russia to counterbalance NATO's conventional military superiority," Ben Rhode, a research associate for non-proliferation and disarmament at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told IPS in an e-mail interview.

"Many in the West have said such weapons will need to be included in future arms control talks, but I don't know how enthusiastic Russia would be about this. A world free of nuclear weapons would see the U.S.'s military superiority increased, and Russia would lose one of the very few ways in which it can justify its claims to be a great power."

REUTERS - A suicide bomber struck a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week and piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by a flood crisis.
 
Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast and said it would launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon" -- repeating a threat to strike Western targets in response to drone attacks that have targeted its leadership.
 
In Washington, the White House condemned the Quetta attack on a Shi'ite rally and expressed solidarity with the Pakistani people, saying it was "even more reprehensible" because it came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as Pakistan reels from disastrous flooding.

One fallacy about the US-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli direct talks scheduled for September 2 seems to escape attention: There is nothing 'direct' about the talks. The timing of the meeting undoubtedly favours the Israelis. The summit will be at a juncture when the Palestinian community is polarized, weak and besieged by waning Arab support and enthusiasm. The Israelis are going to Washington with a self-serving agenda and not simply turning up for a photo opportunity.

Even if involuntary participants, the 'peace-troika' - Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia - provide the required Arab cover in order to give the talks an added air of seriousness and weight, they don't provide the legitimacy the talks desperately require. The first two are the only signatories of peace treaties with Israel.  The third is a key US ally and whose blessing of the talks is needed to garner morale for the Arab parties.

The talks are being packaged in international diplomatic rhetoric as the beginning of a process for a congenial forum towards a 'taswiyah' (as the cliché phrase goes: final, durable and peaceful settlement fulfilling Israeli and Palestinian nationalist aspirations).
 
At the core of the somewhat inflated optimism about the talks is the `crafting' of a diplomatic solution within a 12 to 24 months time span.

LIMA, Peru - President Alan Garcia hailed an agreement with Switzerland's Xstrata Copper for a $4.2 billion copper project in southern Peru, calling it the "contract of the century." (...) Xstrata said in a press release that "ore will be mined at a rate of 51.1 million tons per annum from three open pit mines (initially Ferrobamba, then Chalcobamba and Sulfobamba pits) and processed in a 140,000-ton-per-day sulphide grinding/flotation concentrator."

ROME - Enel Green Power, the renewable energy unit of Enel Group, was awarded three wind-energy projects in Brazil via an auction, the Italian utility said in a statement Friday. The three wind farms - Cristal, Primavera and Sao Judas, each with installed capacity of 30 MW - will generate more than 390,000 megawatt-hours annually, or enough to meet the electricity demand of approximately 245,000 Brazilian homes, and avoid the emission of around 270,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, Enel Group said.

LA PAZ - Bolivian President Evo Morales' government plans to invest $450 million in a project to produce lithium carbonate and potassium chloride on a large scale, the head of the evaporitic resources office of the Comibol state mining corporation said.

Mexico: Prof. José Woldenberg in a recent conference on the democratic transition in Mexico noted that nobody has presented any evidence that Calderón's victory was artificially engineered: The IFE commited mistakes" - "I emphasize, mistakes, not fraud" - Woldenberg dixit.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA) -- As Guyana moves closer to realising its hydro-electric potential, developments in oil and gas exploration augur well for the future of the nation's energy sector. (...) according to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), there are four companies licenced to undertake exploratory work in Guyana; Exxon-Mobil, REPSOL/YPF, Century Guyana Limited and CGX Energy Incorporated (Inc) and outlined that there are large areas in the Atlantic Ocean and Takutu Basin, available for investment for oil exploration. Equipment is currently in the Rupununi to drill for the Takutu Gas Company, in 2011. REPSOL/YPF will also endeavour to commence the drilling of a well in the first quarter of 2011.

Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves is accusing two US businessmen of engaging in a smear campaign to destabilise his Government. (...) According to Gonsalves, the US citizens, Dave Copps, a dot.com millionaire, who owns Pure Discovery Corporation, and Blake Burris of Dynamo Labs are working with the NDP to make false claims about St Vincent and the Grenadines. He said Copps owns a house in Bequia, one of the St Vincent Grenadines, and worked previously for the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Gonsalves said they have mounted a campaign called "Save Democracy for just $5."