Today's Headlines and Commentary

Raffaela has decamped to an undisclosed location for a few weeks, so I'll be rounding up headlines and commentary for a spell.  Feel free to email me noteworthy articles worth my including at singh.lawfare@gmail.com. The alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington continues to generate news and analysis. The New York Times reports here on the White House response and provides an account of Iran's rebuttal to the allegations here. The Washington Post ran an editorial yesterday arguing that the escalating threat Iran poses necessitates a more forceful American response. David Ignatius' latest column, meanwhile, provides additional allegations about the plot.  President Obama's own remarks on Iran are available here. More coverage of the Iran affair can be found in articles from the Daily Beast, Politico, and National Public Radio. Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab's guilty plea has added steam to the debate over whether terrorist suspects are better handled in the criminal justice system or in military detention and commission tribunals, Charlie Savage of the Times reports. A drone strike in Pakistan yesterday killed a senior militant leader in the Haqqani network, says Scott Shane of the Times. C.J. Chivers of the Times describes the endgame in Afghanistan.  A jury has convicted three American Muslims of providing material support for terrorists and for conspiring to attack unspecified foreign targets and the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, VA, reports the Los Angeles Times. Pete Kasperowicz at The Hill informs us that Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Scott Brown (R-MA) and Congressmen Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Jason Altmire (D-PA) have introduced legislation to strip the citizenship of those who engage in hostilities against the U.S., or who purposefully and materially support hostilities against the U.S. The text of the legislation, known as The Enemy Expatriation Act, is available here. CNN reports that a detention hearing has been set for Friday for a Syrian-American accused of spying on Syrian protesters in the United States. The Financial Times describes the link between China's military and growing cyber attacks (subscription required). For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter and visit Georgetown's Center on National Security and the Law Security Law Brief.