Donald Trump’s rhetoric may be idiosyncratic but he has made the idea of an isolationist America a popular subject for discussion among the Washington mainstream, says Peter Apps

MILITARY targets will grow harder to hit and the risk of deadly errors will increase as Western nations pursue their air campaign over Libya, with no guarantee of stopping Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in their tracks.

THE seizure by Somali pirates of the MV Sirius Star, an oil supertanker owned by Saudi company Aramco, some 450 nautical miles off the coast of Kenya, is a brazen act that represents a major threat to both the world’s energy security and the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

CONTRARY to US claims, the insurgency in Iraq is led by well-armed Sunnis angry about losing power, not foreign fighters, and is far larger than previously thought, American military officials say.