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As the U.S. withdraws from Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno bids an anxious goodbye
www.washingtonpost.com-September 05, 2010
When Gen. Ray Odierno returned to Iraq at the end of 2006 to take the reins of ground forces during the darkest days of the war, his team boiled down the country's ills in a document it called the "Gap Chart."
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The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond
www.washingtonpost.com-September 05, 2010
Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.
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End Of Combat Yields Surge Of Contractors
www.bostonglobe.com-September 04, 2010
EVEN AS President Obama claimed this week that the end of combat operations in Iraq “completes’’ a transition in which Iraqis have taken responsibility for their own security, he knows that the US pullout is not as thorough as he let on. The American presence takes the form not just of uniformed personnel — tens of thousands of whom will remain — but also of largely unaccountable private security contractors, whose numbers are likely to grow.
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Want Middle East Peace? Deny Iran Nukes
htttp://online.wsj.com-September 03, 2010
Those of us who hope for peace in the Middle East applaud the meeting of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The fact that Palestinians finally agreed to direct negotiations, without preconditions, is a positive step. But let's not delude ourselves: There can never be peace in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran.
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Our Distracted Commander In Chief
www.washingtonpost.com-September 03, 2010
Many have charged that President Obama's decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan 10 months from now is hampering our war effort. But now it's official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps Commandant James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is "probably giving our enemy sustenance."
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Defense Cut Proposals Deserve Thought
www.politico.com-September 03, 2010
It is somewhat oxymoronic to talk of defense budget cuts as the United States also continues to be part of two wars while simultaneously trying to stimulate the economy. But these are oxymoronic times and so it is sensible, even necessary, to do so.
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If Saddam Had Stayed
htttp://online.wsj.com-September 02, 2010
From the vantage point of history, Barack Obama's prime-time speech announcing the Iraq war's end is less important than the speech he gave eight years ago as a state senator in Illinois. This was the October 2002 "dumb war" speech to an anti-Iraq war rally in Chicago's Federal Plaza. Back then, Mr. Obama had a more complex view of the stakes in Iraq than he does now.
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Awaiting A Verdict In Iraq
www.washingtonpost.com-September 02, 2010
The images for ending America's war in Iraq were appropriately tentative rather than triumphal: The president spoke in Washington of turning a page; the vice president talked here of starting a new chapter; the defense secretary said it was too early even to judge whether the war was worth it.
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A Speech's Tall Order
www.washingtonpost.com-September 02, 2010
By insisting Tuesday evening that "it's time to turn the page," President Obama was talking about more than the Iraq war, and doing much more than reviving one of his most effective slogans from the 2008 campaign.
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Obama's Bottom-Line Strategy
www.latimes.com-September 02, 2010
President Obama's speech on the end of formal combat in Iraq made a case for subjecting future decisions — about war, or troop strength in Afghanistan, or the size of the Defense budget — to more stringent economic analysis.
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Outside View: Pentagon's greatest threat
www.upi.com-September 02, 2010
Let us be blunt. The U.S. Department of Defense and the entire federal government face a fiscal crisis far worse than any threat posed by al-Qaida, Iran or North Korea.
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A Month In, Pakistan Flood Relief Efforts Stuck at 1.0
www.wired.com-September 01, 2010
A month after the Haiti earthquake, the U.S. government had over 20,000 troops on the ground, $450 million in assistance money earmarked, and an innovative web-based system to let troops and aid workers collaborate like never before. A month after the floods in Pakistan, the U.S. effort doesn’t compare in any way. And that’s a major problem, considering Pakistan may be the most strategically significant country on the planet right now.
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You Ain’t Seen This Before
www.nytimes.com-September 01, 2010
President Obama is embarking on something I’ve never seen before — taking on two Missions Impossible at the same time. That is, a simultaneous effort to heal the two most bitter divides in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Shiite-Sunni conflict centered in Iraq. Give him his due. The guy’s got audacity. I’ll provide the hope. But kids, don’t try this at home.
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Oval Office Ambivalence
htttp://online.wsj.com-September 01, 2010
President Obama has often struck us as an ambivalent Commander in Chief, and last night's 19-minute Oval Office address will do little to change that perception—especially abroad, where an American President's determination is most carefully parsed.
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The War In Iraq
www.nytimes.com-September 01, 2010
We were glad to see President Obama go to Fort Bliss on Tuesday before his Oval Office speech on Iraq, to thank those Americans who most shouldered the burdens of a tragic, pointless war. One of the few rays of light in the conflict has been the distance America has come since Vietnam, when blameless soldiers were scorned for decisions made by politicians.
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Combat Mission Ends, But Iraq's Fate Remains Uncertain
www.usatoday.com-September 01, 2010
Since World War II, Americans have seen little reward for their wars. The Korean conflict ended in a menacing 57-year stalemate. Vietnam brought demoralizing defeat. The Afghanistan invasion, so justified and satisfying at the start, degenerated into an unfocused miasma. Even the Persian Gulf War, a military and diplomatic tour de force in its time, was tarnished by its stumbling sequel.
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Iraq and History's Eventual Verdict
www.realclearpolitics.com-September 01, 2010
As the United States' combat mission in Iraq draws to a close, it is fitting to look back on the war and its legacy so far.
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Lost in a Muddle
www.slate.com-August 31, 2010
President Barack Obama's speech from the Oval Office Tuesday night was a strange muddle—a televised prime-time address that lacked a bottom line, a consistent theme, a clear road to the future.
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A Future To Write In Iraq
www.washingtonpost.com-August 31, 2010
Much has been written in recent days about Iraq and anniversaries. August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. August 2010: The last U.S. combat brigade withdraws from Iraq. Are these the bookends of a 20-year war? Did we win? What does winning mean?
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Nation Building Works
www.nytimes.com-August 31, 2010
The U.S. venture into Iraq was a war, but it was also a nation-building exercise. America has spent $53 billion trying to reconstruct Iraq, the largest development effort since the Marshall Plan.
So how’s it working out?
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Iraq after U.S. combat forces withdraw
www.latimes.com-August 31, 2010
Congress has a pretty good record of funding our forces when they go into a combat zone; the record is mixed when it comes to funding our post-combat efforts.
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Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
www.washingtontimes.com-August 31, 2010
As the combat mission in Iraq draws to a close for the United States and the president prepares to address the nation tonight, the Obama administration is attempting to rewrite history by taking singular credit for our accomplishments in Iraq. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently claimed it was President Obama who laid out the plan for a responsible end of the war in Iraq. But that's not the whole story.
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Abandoned In Baghdad
www.nytimes.com-August 31, 2010
As the United States ends combat operations in Iraq today, it is leaving behind the thousands of Iraqis who worked on behalf of the American government — and who fear their lives and families are threatened by insurgents as a result.
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On The Ground In Diyala
www.washingtontimes.com-August 31, 2010
Iraqis say Diyala province, northeast of the capital between Sadr City and Iran, "controls the gates to Baghdad." In Diyala, Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds live together in small communities. Since 2003, Diyala has been a deadly area for U.S. and Iraqi forces. A memorial wall at Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Baqouba lists the names of 348 American soldiers who died in the province fighting for a better Iraq. Despite this history, like Iraq in general, Diyala is headed in the right direction.
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The Fog At War's End
www.washingtonpost.com-August 31, 2010
Now that the Iraq war is over -- for U.S. combat troops, at least -- only one thing is clear about the outcome: We didn't win.
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Why We Fought And What We Achieved
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 31, 2010
Saddam had launched multiple wars, used weapons of mass destruction and aided global terrorism. Now Iraq's government is an ally and represents all the Iraqi people.
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In Korea, A Model For Iraq
www.nytimes.com-August 31, 2010
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, who traveled to Iraq this week to mark the formal end of United States combat operations there, has claimed that peace and stability there could be “one of the great achievements” of the Obama administration. Of course, the largest share of credit belongs to the brave men and women of the American military, who have sacrificed so much and persevered through so much difficulty.
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The Surge And Afghanistan
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 31, 2010
Unless he understands the reason for success in Iraq, the president is unlikely to lead a successful strategy against the Taliban.
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We Owe The Troops An Exit
www.nytimes.com-August 31, 2010
At least 14 American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan over the past few days.
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In Iraq, A Long Engagement
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 31, 2010
It took 35 years for democracy to take hold in South Korea, and U.S. troops could be in Iraq just as long. Noah Feldman on why the draw-down is a beginning and not an end.
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Beneath Iraq, Afghan, Israel Policy: Iran, Iran, Iran
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 31, 2010
When President Barack Obama speaks to the nation Tuesday night about Iraq, he'll be marking the removal of American combat troops from that nation, an important milestone. But his address will signify something much broader as well.
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Export Controls For The 21st Century
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 30, 2010
This week, President Barack Obama will announce a major step forward in the administration's efforts to fundamentally reform the nation's export-control system so that we strengthen our national security and enhance the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing and technology.
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'It's too soon to tell' how the Iraq war went
www.washingtonpost.com-August 30, 2010
On Tuesday, Barack Obama will make a speech about Iraq. With 50,000 troops still in the country in an "advisory capacity" he can't declare victory, so he will instead celebrate "the end of combat operations." If he follows others who have already marked this occasion, his comments will focus on Iraq: the state of Iraqi democracy, the level of violence, the impact seven years of war has had on Iraqi society.
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The Immeasurable Costs Of A War
www.philly.com-August 30, 2010
Sometimes a single word tells the story. But sometimes a word can hide what's happening. A few recent headlines: "U.S. casualties in Afghanistan hit record high"; "Casualties rise for U.S. troops in Afghanistan"; "U.S. casualties hit record in Afghanistan." Likewise, television pundits and war experts have been calmly explaining to their audiences that it's not surprising that "casualties" have risen this summer.
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Will Prez Go Wobbly On Drone Attacks?
www.nypost.com-August 30, 2010
As this thing Team Obama won't call the War on Terror spreads to the Horn of Africa, we're increasingly going to need drones to send Islamists to their 72 virgins. Trouble is, President Obama may yet go wobbly about the legality and morality of remote-controlled killings, which some in his inner circles have long opposed. That would be a dangerous mistake.
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Winding down the Iraq war, and avoiding civil war
www.latimes.com-August 30, 2010
Most Americans seem ready to consign the Iraq war to history. They've watched tank convoys leave Baghdad, and they've heard the president underscore his campaign promise to draw down U.S. forces, leaving roughly 50,000 in the country as of Aug. 31. Moreover, Iraq and the U.S. have agreed that the remaining U.S. troops will be gone by December 2011. But history suggests that unless the U.S. is willing and able to remain committed to Iraq's security and prosperity — and Iraqis know it — the country is at risk of spiraling back into civil war.
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Obama: Iraq war is ending, Baghdad to chart future
www.realclearpolitics.com-August 28, 2010
President Barack Obama said the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq means "the war is ending" and Baghdad is in position "to chart its own course."
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A Very Long Engagement
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 28, 2010
It took 35 years for democracy to take hold in South Korea, and U.S. troops could be in Iraq just as long. Noah Feldman on why the draw-down is a beginning and not an end.
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For Once, Hope in the Middle East
www.brookings.edu-August 26, 2010
Now that President Obama has finally succeeded in bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, the commentariat is already dismissing his chances of reaching a peace agreement. But there are four factors that distinguish the direct talks that will get under way on Sept. 2 in Washington from previous attempts — factors that offer some reason for optimism.
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A Cold War Cyberchill
www.washingtonpost.com-August 26, 2010
With little fanfare, the Pentagon is putting the finishing touches on a new strategy that will treat cyberspace as a domain of potential warfare -- and apply instant "active defense" to counterattacks that, in theory, could shut down the nation's transportation and commerce.
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The Military Should Mirror The Nation
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 26, 2010
The nearly three million members of the U.S. Armed Forces have been at war for nearly a decade. While combat troops are being withdrawn from Iraq, surge forces are still deploying in Afghanistan and many soldiers are on their second or third tour of duty. Americans hold this service and sacrifice in high regard—but they do so increasingly from a distance. This is a threat to our country's civic ethic of equal sacrifice.
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Mr. Karzai’s Promises
www.nytimes.com-August 26, 2010
It did not take long for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to forget his latest anticorruption promise. In June, he vowed that “all obstacles” to prosecuting offenders “will be removed.” Then two anticorruption agencies in Kabul arrested dozens of suspects, including a member of Mr. Karzai’s inner circle, on graft charges. Now Mr. Karzai has become one of the main obstacles.
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Critics of ‘Imperial America’ had reason for their silence
www.thenational.com-August 26, 2010
The withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq last week brought muted reactions from those who had opposed the invasion of the country in 2003. This was partly understandable, since the United States will continue to exert considerable influence in Baghdad. But there was also discernible bad faith in the critics’ refusal to acknowledge that Iraq had entered a fundamentally new phase.
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The Long War: Afghanistan After July 2011
www.politicsdaily.com-August 26, 2010
On my first reporting trip to Afghanistan, beginning in Jan. 2002, I lived for several months with 30 soldiers in a leaky tent heated against the bitter cold with a kerosene-fired pot-bellied stove. Waiting to be airlifted into the mountains to fight the Taliban, the soldiers and I shuffled through rutted snow to another sagging tent for chow and down a beaten path to the hastily built (and unheated) plywood latrine. We washed and shaved outside. The U.S. Army colonel who ran the base told me that no permanent structures would be built there; the policy of the Bush administration was to maintain a "light footprint' for the few months it would take to finish off the war.
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Why The Senate Should Block 'New Start'
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 25, 2010
After returning from recess on Sept. 6, the Senate will consider whether to ratify New Start, the nuclear weapons treaty that President Barack Obama signed with his Russian counterpart in April. The treaty has many problems, from being unverifiable to giving Russia virtual veto power over U.S. missile defense, and more. But the Senate should block it for another more important reason: It is the first major step in the implementation of Mr. Obama's broader nuclear strategy. This strategy would gravely weaken American national security.
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Medal Of Shame
www.latimes.com-August 25, 2010
A despicable lie about a Medal of Honor earns shame, but not prison, in a sensible ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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The Trial Bar Heads To Iraq
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 25, 2010
If the anti-antiterror passions of the Bush years have cooled somewhat with the Obama Presidency, the destructive legal backwash continues. One of the more important cases is a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld, which would create by judicial fiat a civil liability standard for wartime decisions. Forget the 101st Airborne; send in the trial lawyers.
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What Does July 2011 Mean In Afghanistan?
www.usatoday.com-August 24, 2010
In his Dec. 1 speech at West Point announcing that an additional 30,000 U.S. troops would go to Afghanistan, together with several thousand more allied soldiers, President Obama adopted a muscular counterinsurgency approach to the war. As this summer ends, that deployment has been nearly completed. There are nearly 100,000 U.S. troops plus almost 45,000 foreign soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan (along with about 240,000 Afghan army and police forces).
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The Twenty Years' War
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 24, 2010
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Two decades later, on Aug. 18, 2010, the U.S. withdrew its last combat brigade from Iraq. Throughout those years U.S. military operations went under a variety of names—including Desert Storm, the Gulf War, Operations Northern and Southern Watch, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the War in Iraq—but over time they will be seen as part of an unbroken thread.
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Petraeus' Dubious Strategy In Afghanistan
www.chicagotribune.com-August 23, 2010
Gen. David Petraeus recently began a public relations blitz to convince American public opinion that the U.S. should stay the course in Afghanistan rather than holding to President Obama's pledge to start withdrawing troops in July.
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Pakistan is the Afghan war's real aggressor
www.washingtonpost.com-August 23, 2010
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Afghanistan became a rare example of international consensus. The global community, amid competing regional and international interests, undertook a military intervention endorsed and legitimized by the U.N. Security Council. It was common knowledge that al-Qaeda had created a haven in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan's intelligence agency. Dismantling this regional terrorist infrastructure was considered vital to the international counterterrorism strategy.
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Departure Of Combat Forces Brings New Challenge In Iraq
www.usatoday.com-August 23, 2010
When the last officially designated American combat brigade pulled out of Iraq last week, the occasion — for all its symbolic significance — passed with scant notice. President Obama, no doubt mindful of his predecessor's "Mission Accomplished" fiasco, simply noted that his campaign commitment to end combat operations by Sept. 1 had been met, saving any more substantive comment for a speech later this week. News media attention was similarly moderate, and critics and supporters of the war alike were uncharacteristically subdued.
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U.S. Deadline Improved Iraq
www.usatoday.com-August 23, 2010
Last Thursday, the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, crossed the border out of Iraq. With this exit, two weeks ahead of schedule, our military met the timeline to withdraw combat troops that President Obama first proposed 16 months ago. For that, every American should feel reassured.
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The Guns Of August, 1990
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 23, 2010
The last 20 years would have been very different had American forces taken that open road to Baghdad the first time around.
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Making Afghanistan More Dangerous
www.nytimes.com-August 21, 2010
UNDER orders from President Hamid Karzai, over the next four months Afghanistan will be phasing out almost all foreign private security companies, a move meant to bring the country’s vast security apparatus under tighter government control.
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Recount In Iraq Preserves Victory For Maliki Rival
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 20, 2010
When the men and women of Fourth Brigade, Second Infantry Division deployed to Iraq in April 2007 as part of President Bush's surge, American soldiers were being killed or wounded at a rate of about 750 a month, the country was falling to sectarian mayhem, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had declared that the war was "lost."
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Don't Cut Off Lebanon's Aid
www.carnegieendowment.org-August 19, 2010
With a deadly clash along the Israeli-Lebanese border earlier this month and amid growing accusations that Hezbollah holds undue sway over the Lebanese army, members of the U.S. Congress moved to cut off military aid to the strategically critical Arab country. But this runs counter to U.S. interests and to the interests of Lebanese and regional stability. While there are valid concerns about the Lebanese military, stopping funding will weaken the government and military, empower Hezbollah and strengthen Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon.
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Don't Take The Taliban's Bait
www.usatoday.com-August 18, 2010
Most American warriors logically desire to fight with no reservations. But in this our longest war ever, it has become clear that destroying a village to save it works no better in Afghanistan than it did in Vietnam.
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The Cost Of Superpower Status
www.latimes.com-August 18, 2010
America began the new millennium with optimism and confidence. Today, two recessions and two wars later, the optimism is weakened and the confidence is waning. U.S. military spending has risen to nearly half of the global total, but the U.S. share of global output is eroding steadily as other economies grow faster.
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Clerics responsible for Iran's failed attempts at democracy
www.washingtonpost.com-August 18, 2010
Thursday marks the anniversary of one of the most mythologized events in history, the 1953 coup in Iran that ousted Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadeq. CIA complicity in that event has long provoked apologies from American politicians and denunciations from the theocratic regime. The problem with the prevailing narrative? The CIA's role in Mossadeq's demise was largely inconsequential. The institution most responsible for aborting Iran's democratic interlude was the clerical estate, and the Islamic Republic should not be able to whitewash the clerics' culpability.
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No ‘Graceful Exit’
www.nytimes.com-August 17, 2010
In his book, “The Promise,” about President Obama’s first year in office, Jonathan Alter describes a brief conversation between the president and Vice President Joe Biden that took place last November at the end of Mr. Obama’s long deliberation about what to do in Afghanistan.
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U.S. Withdrawal and Limited Options in Iraq
www.realclearpolitics.com-August 17, 2010
It is August 2010, which is the month when the last U.S. combat troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. It is therefore time to take stock of the situation in Iraq, which has changed places with Afghanistan as the forgotten war.
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Talk About Iran Attack Seems Very Overheated
www.newsweek.com-August 16, 2010
An article in The Atlantic reports that Iran may be nearing the "point of no return" in its pursuit of an atomic bomb. Therefore, says author Jeffrey Goldberg, there is a "better than 50 percent chance" Israel will launch an attack against Iranian nuclear sites by "next July."
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Netanyahu's warning
www.washingtonpost.com-August 15, 2010
When Israel declared independence in 1948, it had to use mostly small arms to repel attacks by six Arab armies. Today, however, Israel feels, and is, more menaced than it was then or has been since. Hence the potentially world-shaking decision that will be made here, probably within two years.
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Pentagon Stumbles Again On Military Mentor Program
www.usatoday.com-August 13, 2010
Here's a deal anyone would jump at.
Imagine retiring with a six-figure pension and a part-time job with your old employer, at $200 to $440 an hour, to mentor company leaders. It's OK to have other gigs on the side. If they present potential conflicts of interest, not to worry. You're subject to no ethics rules, and the details are confidential.
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Opposing view on defense spending: Good program made better
www.usatoday.com-August 13, 2010
Thousands of U.S. troops are in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan. They confront perilous choices each day. Their safety, as well as mission success, hinge upon the judgment of their leaders. And judgment is one of the hardest skills to teach. For this reason, the Department of Defense established a senior mentoring program to provide hands-on training to military officers. Senior mentors train combat leaders before they deploy as well as once they are in theater.
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Awlaki Vs. Predator
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 13, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) recently launched a legal challenge against the president's right to kill al Qaeda operatives. If the suit is successful, it will undermine the Constitution's separation of powers and make it virtually impossible for the United States to successfully defend itself with military force in the future.
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Cold War Mindset Harms Peace
www.chinadaily.com-August 13, 2010
The recent decision by the United States to involve its nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the scheduled joint naval drills with the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the Yellow Sea will further compromise its security strategy in East Asia.
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The State Of War
www.nytimes.com-August 13, 2010
We believe that the United States has a powerful national interest in Afghanistan, in depriving Al Qaeda of a safe haven on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This country would also do enormous damage to its moral and strategic standing if it now simply abandoned the Afghan people to the Taliban’s brutalities.
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A Chance To Build Trust In Pakistan
www.washingtonpost.com-August 12, 2010
The rains that have for the past two weeks caused the worst flooding in northwest Pakistan in eight decades have shifted attention from the country's battle against insurgency and militancy and the fragility of its relationship with the United States.
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Hamid Karzai and America's Vietnam mistake
www.latimes.com-August 12, 2010
Amid growing debate about whether the United States should stay in Afghanistan, one issue of agreement is that Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, is both the central figure in the war and its weakest link.
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Gates Cuts Pentagon Fat, But Plenty Of Flab Remains
www.usatoday.com-August 11, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates' ongoing campaign to swing a scythe through Pentagon bloat and excess is overdue and entirely welcome. The Pentagon budget has more than doubled in just the past decade, and core defense spending is now bigger in real terms than it was at the height of President Reagan's enormous defense buildup in the 1980s.
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Cuts are shortsighted
www.usatoday.com-August 11, 2010
The announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to make cuts at the Defense Department, specifically the decision to eliminate the Joint Forces Command, is shortsighted, devoid of strategic decision-making and could harm national security.
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Fog of war: What are we missing?
www.usatoday.com-August 11, 2010
On Sept. 11, 2006, The Washington Post carried a front-page story with an alarming headline: "Situation Called Dire in West Iraq."
It was dire then in Anbar, but the story appeared just as the situation was turning for the better. Only two days before, a group of tribal sheiks had met in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, and agreed to oppose al-Qaeda and work with the Americans.
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Pakistan's Project Of Renewal
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 11, 2010
Pakistan, a nation beset by political tragedies for generations, now faces a new test of its national character: a natural calamity unprecedented in our history. Millions have been displaced and thousands have died in floods caused by unabated rain. The monsoons are destroying villages and exposing thousands to illnesses including cholera and dysentery. Apart from organizing immediate rescue and relief operations, our people and our government also face the challenges of rehabilitation and reconstruction.
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WikiLeaks' Blow to the Surge
www.aei.org-August 10, 2010
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has made clear that his objective in releasing tens of thousands of classified documents was to "end the war in Afghanistan" and "oppose an unjust [war] plan before it reaches implementation." He may well achieve his goal. Assange's illegal disclosures are helping the Taliban to undermine Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy before it has a chance to work.
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Confronting China's Snarl
www.aei.org-August 10, 2010
For years, foreign policy optimists have predicted that China's rise to superpower status would be peaceful and responsible. But recent Chinese offensives, both domestic and foreign, make this vision look increasingly naive. The Obama administration must decide whether to respond vigorously to Beijing's hostility or allow its aggressiveness to go unchecked.
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Black Budget in the Red
www.cato.org-August 09, 2010
It sounds like a recipe for a conservative crusade: a sector of the government that's seen 150 percent growth in less than a decade yet is "so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine"; one where projects run hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, where audits and required reporting frequently are neglected, and where officials at the highest levels admit they can't keep track of what their agencies are doing, or even how many contractors they've got on the public payroll.
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Will Iraq Fall Victim To The Oil Curse?
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 09, 2010
Since America toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has had three free-wheeling, relatively fraud-free national elections. Its military has been reconstituted, its soldiers and some of its police retrained. The infrastructure has been partially rebuilt. Iraq, with its 30 million people and the world's third-largest oil reserves, could one day be fabulously rich.
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The Taliban Method
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 09, 2010
The barbarity of Islamic extremists has become a commonplace event, but the apparent murder last week of 10 aid workers in Afghanistan, including six Americans, is especially notable as an education in the nature of our enemy.
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A Good Start
www.slate.com-August 09, 2010
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' plan to cut Pentagon waste, abuse, and redundancies by $100 billion over the next five years is both more and less radical than it may seem.
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Obama's Briefing on Iran: It's About Pressure, Not Diplomacy
www.carnegieendowment.org-August 06, 2010
The White House called in a small group of journalists this week to listen to President Obama and his top advisers give a briefing on the state of the sanctions regime against Iran. Others at the meeting have described it as "unusual," but I don't know why. Its purpose couldn't have been clearer: The president and his team wanted to take some credit for all the difficult months of diplomacy that led to the passage of the U.N. sanctions resolution in June, especially the persistent cajoling of Russia and China.
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"Don't cut funding for civilian 'presence posts' in Iraq"
www.understandingwar.org-August 06, 2010
After weeks of gridlock, Congress late last month passed legislation providing $33 billion of critical “supplemental” funding for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, lost in the last-minute legislative shuffle were funds for a small but critical initiative that will be central to ensuring the hard-won security achieved in Iraq since the surge of 2007 doesn’t unravel as U.S. forces withdraw over the months ahead.
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End The Defense Monopolies
www.washingtonpost.com-August 06, 2010
Although it pains me to say it, sometimes Congress knows better than the Pentagon -- and the fight over the Joint Strike Fighter engine is a case in point. The House voted on May 27 to preserve funding for an alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, despite Defense Department and White House efforts to kill the engine. The Pentagon has sought to grant one company a $100 billion sole-source contract lasting 30 years; in other words, a monopoly on producing the engine. The House said not so fast -- and moved to ensure that there would be competition for the contract. I'm quite unused to defending Congress, but on this one the lawmakers were right.
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Iraq: Requiem For A Profound Misadventure
www.time.com-August 06, 2010
It is a matter of some relief that Barack Obama did not announce the end of major combat operations in Iraq under a banner that said "Mission Accomplished." He did it in a speech to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), the most grave and sober audience imaginable. And appropriately so, after a war that should never have been fought, a war that by some estimates will cost $3 trillion before it's done (including the health care services rendered to those represented by the DAV), a war whose casualties number in the hundreds of thousands. Iraq hasn't been much in the news over the past year, but this is an important milestone — even if our mission there will continue on a much smaller scale for 16 more months — a moment for reflection and humility in the face of a national embarrassment.
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Mr. President, Quit Afghanistan, Too
www.usatoday.com-August 04, 2010
How did such a smart president as Barack Obama trip over such an obvious non sequitur?
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Iraq's Blessed Affliction
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 04, 2010
As President Barack Obama focuses American attention on this month's drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq, the result of Iraq's last national election remains uncertain. No clear victor emerged when ballots were cast in March, as the opposing blocs of former Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won 91 and 89 seats, respectively. No governing coalition has formed in five months of political jockeying, and the Iraqi people are frustrated.
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What If Iran Already Has The Bomb?
www.washingtontimes.com-August 03, 2010
In June, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reassured America that there was still time for sanctions to compel Iran to abandon pursuit of an "Islamic bomb." U.S. policy toward Iran is founded on the assessment, unquestioned by anyone in the press, that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons.
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Is Afghanistan Worth It?
htttp://online.wsj.com-August 03, 2010
The U.S. cannot remain a superpower if the suspicion takes root that we are a feckless nation.
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Leaving Iraq?
www.carnegieendowment.org-August 02, 2010
After seven years, the United States is in the final stages of exiting Iraq. Only 50,000 U.S. troops will remain by the end of August, but the country is far from stable. Nearly five months after the parliamentary elections, Iraq is gridlocked by political squabbling over who should be prime minister. The parliament has yet to elect a speaker and has postponed its session indefinitely. Iraqis are frustrated by the failure of their leaders to make real progress, the economy is in shambles, and violence is once again rising.
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Kiss This War Goodbye
www.nytimes.com-August 01, 2010
The national yawn that largely greeted the war logs is most of all an indicator of the country’s verdict on the Afghan war itself, now that it’s nine years on and has reached its highest monthly casualty rate for American troops. Many Americans at home have lost faith and checked out.
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The Afghan Surge Deserves A Chance To Work
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 31, 2010
In recent weeks, many experts have made the case for minimizing the U.S. role in Afghanistan and falling back on a more modest strategy. This week's WikiLeaks scandal exacerbated the situation, putting supporters of President Obama's strategy on the defensive even though the leaked dispatches were unsurprising in content.
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Impact of past defense cuts should warn of risks
www.washingtonpost.com-July 30, 2010
The prospect of an exit from Iraq and Afghanistan has sparked rumblings on Capitol Hill that it's time to cut the defense budget. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says, "I'm pretty certain cuts are coming -- in defense and the whole budget." Defense Secretary Bob Gates is already pushing to cancel some big-ticket programs and to wring savings out of the existing budget.
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The Missing Word in Our Afghanistan Strategy
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 29, 2010
What President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron didn't say during last week's joint news conference may have mattered more than what they did say. The omissions could lead to a grave setback in the war on terror and deadly results for the Afghan people.
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The CIA Solution For Afghanistan
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 29, 2010
The U.S. military will not achieve anything resembling victory in Afghanistan, no matter how noble the objective and heroic the effort.
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1 Soldier Or 20 Schools?
www.nytimes.com-July 29, 2010
The war in Afghanistan will consume more money this year alone than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War — combined.
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What I Saw At Moba Khan
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 28, 2010
The military reports highlighted by WikiLeaks don't provide a full picture of the war.
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Lost in a Maze
www.nytimes.com-July 28, 2010
The waterfall of leaks on Afghanistan underlines the awful truth: We’re not in control.
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Battle Of The South China Sea
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 28, 2010
Hillary Clinton had the temerity to offer a few anodyne suggestions about the South China Sea at the Asean Regional Forum meeting in Hanoi last week. Soon after, China's Foreign Minister lashed out at the U.S. Secretary of State, and dyspeptic editorials from the state media are coming fast. Hear, hear: The U.S. is finally pushing back against China's bullying in Southeast Asia.
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The U.S. Stands Up To China's Bullying
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 28, 2010
Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates have put Beijing on notice that we will counter any regional expansionism.
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The Pakistan Conundrum
www.washingtonpost.com-July 28, 2010
In the almost nine years the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan, any thoughtful person who follows the war has had a recurring worry: Can America rely on Pakistan? Can our allies in that turbulent country close the Taliban's havens along the border? And, for that matter, are the Pakistanis really trying?
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Could Wikileaks offer a way out of war?
www.washingtonpost.com-July 27, 2010
The war in Afghanistan just got a little foggier -- or a little more transparent -- depending on how you choose to see the weekend's 92,000-item document dump courtesy of Wikileaks. As London's Guardian editorialized, "These war logs -- written in the heat of engagement -- show a conflict that is brutally messy, confused and immediate. It is in some contrast with the tidied-up and sanitised 'public' war, as glimpsed through official communiqués as well as the necessarily limited snapshots of embedded reporting."
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War Leaks Confirm What You Already Know
www.usatoday.com-July 27, 2010
If Washington had a Richter scale for measuring the disruptive force of the news leaks that routinely shake the capital, Sunday's 91,000-document temblor about U.S. woes in Afghanistan might register about 4.0 — noticeable, but not very significant. Despite the prodigious volume and loud reaction, the documents exposed so far appear to reveal virtually nothing new, much less pose any risk to U.S. troops or policy.
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'Bring our troops home'
www.usatoday.com-July 27, 2010
The release Sunday of thousands of classified documents about the war in Afghanistan by WikiLeaks dramatically underscores what many of us have been saying for a long time: The U.S. is making a tragic mistake in Afghanistan.
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An Ally of Necessity
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 27, 2010
The much publicized leaking of several thousand classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan may have provided the war's American critics an opportunity to press their objections. It does not, however, make the case against military and political cooperation between the governments of the United States and Pakistan, made necessary by the challenge of global terrorism.
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Getting Lost In The Fog Of War
www.nytimes.com-July 27, 2010
ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.
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U.S. falls short in helping Mexico end its drug war
www.washingtonpost.com-July 26, 2010
Last month, 303 people were murdered in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, which lies alongside El Paso. This month, the dead include three men killed by a sophisticated, remote-controlled car bomb -- the first in Mexico's drug wars. In a city of 1.2 million, more than 2,600 died violently in 2009; some 200,000 more may have fled.
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Afghan Document Leak: Why America's Allies Are Hedging their Bets
www.time.com-July 26, 2010
So how do you say "Duh!" in Urdu? There's nothing new or remarkable in the suggestion that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) has been aiding and abetting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, as highlighted in coverage of the massive leak of U.S. military documents published on Sunday. If anything, it's conventional wisdom among Afghanistan watchers that Pakistan continues to treat the movement it helped bring to power in 1996 as a strategic counterweight against Indian influence on its western flank.
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Obama's Detrimental Deadline
www.philly.com-July 25, 2010
President Obama is caught on the horns of an Afghan deadline dilemma.
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Two Afghan towns. One success story.
www.washingtonpost.com-July 25, 2010
There, in the community of Nawa, a comprehensive U.S. civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy has achieved what seems to be a miracle cure. Most Taliban fighters have retreated. The district center is so quiescent that U.S. Marines regularly walk around without their body armor and helmets. The local economy is so prosperous, fueled by more than $10 million in American agriculture aid, that the main bazaar has never been busier. Now for sale: shiny, Chinese-made motorcycles and mobile phones. There's even a new ice cream shop.
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A 'Top Secret' Threat To Lives And Security?
www.washingtonpost.com-July 25, 2010
It's normal for readers to react after The Post runs a big story. But many weighed in before last week's publication of "Top Secret America," the three-part series detailing the enormous national security buildup since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After word spread through government agencies that publication was imminent, readers implored The Post not to reveal the names of companies doing classified work on contract.
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Female Suicide Bombers: The New Threat In Afghanistan
http;//smallwarsjournal.com-July 24, 2010
Amidst the disarray following General McChrystal’s interview with Rolling Stone, a much less reported but profound event marked the course of the insurgency in Afghanistan. The recent female suicide operation in eastern Afghanistan reveals not only a paradigm shift in Taliban insurgent tactics, but also a mutation of the organization’s founding ideology.
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Can Egypt Change?: Reviewing a Decade of Changes
www.carnegieendowment.org-July 23, 2010
Egypt these days feels like a restless sea, pulling this way and that, without a clear direction. One can make a reasonable argument that all these shifting currents are really about economic and labor grievances, or human rights abuses, or the youth bulge, or the need for political reform, or presidential succession. One can argue that Egypt is on the cusp of profound change or that it will get a succession over with in the next year or two and go back to pretty much the status quo ante.
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U.S. needs to carefully plot engagement with Russia
www.washingtonpost.com-July 23, 2010
The bill on President Dmitry Medvedev's desk that expands the powers of the KGB's domestic successor would seem to confirm our worst fears about Russia's political development. But the story of how it got there shows that Russia's political transformation is still unfolding and reminds us that the United States has a role to play in shaping it.
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Adaptation Or Decimation
www.washingtontimes.com-July 23, 2010
"Afghanistan is not Iraq," Gen. David H. Petraeus acknowledged as he scrambled to resur- rect the viable elements of ousted Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's flawed counteri-surgency strategy for Afghanistan. He no doubt will attempt to combine these elements with his own experiences in Iraq, even as Iraq falters into a new cycle of sectarian violence. Both situations are becoming so dire that Army Chief of Staff and former Iraq commander Gen. George W. Casey Jr. recently announced that we can expect "another decade or so" of war
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The War Away From The Battlefields
www.nytimes.com-July 23, 2010
Suicide stalks the United States military as much as enemies do on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the latest grim data. Last year, 347 military personnel were killed in the two wars, while at least 381 warriors took their own lives. The double-edged tragedy was brought home in recent Congressional hearings that laid bare how much must be done to reach and comfort battle-weary soldiers near the edge of their resources.
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Al Qaeda Still Wants A Dirty Bomb
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 22, 2010
Denying terrorists access to radiological materials that can be used in a dirty bomb attack—one that could bring our economy to a standstill and render areas uninhabitable for decades—is a major security challenge.
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Smart Intelligence
www.latimes.com-July 22, 2010
The director of national intelligence should be given more authority to coordinate overlapping agencies, while their budget should be trimmed.
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All The Jet We Can Afford
www.latimes.com-July 22, 2010
The Pentagon and the Obama administration are at odds with the House over funding a second engine for the advanced fighter jet.
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The Next Deadline
www.nytimes.com-July 22, 2010
American combat troops are on target to leave Iraq by the end of August. President Obama — with the backing of his generals — is right to keep to his timetable, despite a recent series of bloody attacks by insurgents.
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The Overgrowth Of Intelligence
www.washingtonpost.com-July 22, 2010
SINCE SEPT. 11, 2001, the United States has increased its spending on intelligence by 250 percent and created or revamped 263 organizations. Yet the problems that gusher of money and bureaucracy were meant to solve -- such as the failure of existing intelligence organizations to share information or "connect the dots" about terrorism threats -- have not been alleviated.
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Misdirection Of National Intelligence
www.nytimes.com-July 22, 2010
After four bosses in five years, the intelligence community needs sustained and credible leadership. James Clapper Jr., who was nominated by President Obama to succeed the ousted Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, certainly seems up to the job.
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The Truth About Africom
wwwforeignpolicy.com-July 21, 2010
I feel fortunate that I can say that I was present at the inception of U.S. Africa Command (Africom), the U.S. military headquarters that oversees and coordinates U.S. military activities in Africa. Starting with just a handful of people sitting around a table nearly four years ago, we built an organization dedicated to the idea that U.S. security interests in Africa are best served by building long-term partnerships with African nations, regional organizations, and the African Union. At the same time, however, there has been a great deal of speculation and concern about Africom. We believe our work and accomplishments will continue to speak for themselves.
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'Hard Is Not Hopeless' In Afghanistan
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 21, 2010
During the darkest hours of the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus testified before Congress that "hard is not hopeless." Those words ring true again today as he begins another turnaround attempt in Afghanistan—a war not going well, but not yet lost. If Gen. Petraeus again plays the cards that led to success in Iraq, an outcome favorable to U.S. interests is still possible.
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How about a leaner and meaner intelligence system?
www.washingtonpost.com-July 21, 2010
The Post series on "Top Secret America" has done a superb job of charting an intelligence community so big and unwieldy, and so layered with redundant operations, that, as the newspaper said in its opening headline, it is "a hidden world, growing beyond control."
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Dumbing Down Intel
www.nypost.com-July 21, 2010
The fundamental problem with our national intelligence system is that it assumes that quantity can substitute for quality. The result is a vast, expensive network that's far less than the sum of its parts.
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Military voters soon to be disenfranchised - again
www.washingtontimes.com-July 21, 2010
By most accounts, the 2008 presidential election was a disaster for military voters. Thousands of them were disenfranchised when their absentee ballots were sent to wrong addresses, lost in the mail or mailed too close to the election for the ballot to be returned. To make matters worse, thousands of ballots were rejected by local election officials because the ballot - through no fault of the military voter - arrived after the election deadline.
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Kagan And The Military: What Really Happened
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 21, 2010
Her intellectually dishonest opposition to our armed forces during a time of war shows bad judgment. She doesn't belong on the Supreme Court.
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U.S. Revamps Its 'Muddle East' Policy
www.washingtoninstitute.org-July 21, 2010
The foreign policy team of US President Barack Obama is undertaking a reassessment of its policy all over the Middle East, including Israel. No one has made or will make a public declaration about such a change, but a reassessment is nonetheless under way, and we can already detect the first products of this rethinking of policy.
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What cannot be said in five minutes
www.economist.com-July 20, 2010
WEARY international conference-goers could be forgiven for pinching themselves to remember they were not in Tokyo, Paris, Bonn—or indeed any of the nine cities around the world where foreign ministers have been meeting over the past nine years to discuss all things Afghanistan.
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Guantanamo is no venue for a civilian jury trial
www.washingtonpost.com-July 20, 2010
There were fatal flaws in the recent suggestion that Congress should designate Guantanamo Bay part of an existing federal district court or as a separate federal district court so that those accused of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks can be tried there ["Try them in federal court -- at Gitmo," Washington Forum, July 16].
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Who's Building Aghanistan?
www.washingtonpost.com-July 20, 2010
VICE PRESIDENT Biden insisted again on Sunday that "we're not engaged in nation-building" in Afghanistan. How, then, to explain the gathering in Kabul of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and 40 other foreign ministers for the Kabul Conference on Tuesday -- the goal of which is to adopt detailed plans for the Afghan government to expand its authority, fight corruption and take over social and economic programs from foreign agencies? In fact the government of Hamid Karzai is undertaking a major new effort to gain control over the country, as well as the fight against the Taliban. Its success or failure will do much to determine the outcome of the Obama administration's strategy -- whatever that might be called.
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In Afghanistan, A Threat Of Plunder
www.nytimes.com-July 20, 2010
THE news that Afghanistan has $1 trillion in unmined mineral deposits has been met with some pessimism. Now, it is said, the country will be transformed from its present condition into the next Congo, whose new wealth from gold, copper and other minerals has brought mainly corruption and violence.
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Attacking The Heart Of The Border Problem
www.arizonarepublic.com-July 20, 2010
Over the past year and a half, the Obama administration has pursued a new border-security strategy with an unprecedented sense of urgency, making historic investments in personnel, technology and infrastructure while combating the transnational criminal organizations that smuggle weapons, cash and people across the United States border.
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Time To Discipline Defense Spending
www.politico.com-July 19, 2010
An absence of restraint and a failure to set priorities, as revealed in the Quadrennial Defense Review, has put the Pentagon on a collision course with fiscal realities and a changing political environment.
Now is the time for Congress and the Pentagon to take a closer look at the military’s missions, make a realistic risk calculation and reshape a smaller and better tailored force.
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Avoiding Another Intelligence Failure on Iran
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 19, 2010
U.S. intelligence has already had two horrendously costly lapses this decade: the failure to interdict the plot of Sept. 11, 2001, and the erroneous assessment that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction. Both brought us into wars. A third failure may now be unfolding, with consequences that might dwarf the preceding two. To avoid this, we need an inquest.
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We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It.
www.newsweek.com-July 18, 2010
GOP chairman Michael Steele was blasted by fellow Republicans recently for describing Afghanistan as “a war of Obama’s choosing,” and suggesting that the United States would fail there as had many other outside powers. Some critics berated Steele for his pessimism, others for getting his facts wrong, given that President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan soon after 9/11. But Steele’s critics are the ones who are wrong: the RNC chair was more correct than not on the substance of his statement, if not the politics.
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The Curse Of Kandahar
www.latimes.com-July 17, 2010
No wonder ordinary Afghans don't trust the U.S.: American leaders have backed a corrupt government.
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Al Qaeda Goes Viral
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 16, 2010
Earlier this month, the full version of Inspire, a new English language journal, surfaced on the Internet. It's publisher? The Yemen-based terrorist organization, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
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Winning In Iraq By Working Together
www.washingtontimes.com-July 16, 2010
Although the refrains of mutual sniping from our diplomats and soldiers in combat areas sometimes appear in the press, the reality is that over the past several years, we have learned more often than not to work quite well together to achieve common goals.
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A U.S.-Russia Reset Comes In From The Cold
www.washingtonpost.com-July 16, 2010
This month we've had a reminder of the Cold War espionage legacy that still hangs over the U.S.-Russian relationship like a murky gray cloak. But in a strange coincidence we've also seen some dramatic evidence of the strategic "reset" in Russian-American relations -- from implacable enmity to at least occasional partnership. Which path is real, at a time when the nations talk of working together even as their spies continue scavenging for secrets?
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Guantanamo As Haven?
www.washingtonpost.com-July 16, 2010
IT IS NOT EVERY day that detainees attempt to block their own release from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But that is what six Algerians who have been held at the prison for some eight years are trying to do.
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Fed Gets More Power, Responsibility
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 15, 2010
After fending off most challenges to its independence and winning new powers to oversee big financial firms, the Federal Reserve has emerged from a bruising debate on the overhaul of U.S. financial rules as perhaps the pre-eminent regulator in the sector. But that could only bring it added blame if things go wrong again.
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A Gridlock To Cheer Al-Qaeda
www.washingtonpost.com-July 15, 2010
I am embarrassed when I think back to a conversation last October in Wana, South Waziristan -- deep in the tribal areas -- with Maj. Gen. Khalid Rabbani, the commander of Pakistani forces there. He was about to launch an offensive against Taliban fighters, but he worried that the "clear and hold" phase of the campaign would fail if Pakistan couldn't also "build" through economic development.
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Pick Your Tribes
www.nypost.com-July 15, 2010
It's heartening to hear encour aging news from AfPak, after a year of meandering and malaise: Gen. David Petraeus has hit the ground running.
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Financial Reform, R.I.P.
www.forbes.com-July 15, 2010
The Dodd-Frank bill does nothing to deal with Wall Street's central problem: systemic non-disclosure.
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A War Policy Needs A War President
www.washingtonpost.com-July 14, 2010
If Michael Steele's latest gaffe -- criticizing the conflict in Afghanistan as "a war of Obama's choosing" -- was a test, Republicans generally passed it.
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Iran And The Missile Defense Imperative
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 14, 2010
U.S. intelligence now sees Tehran developing intercontinental missiles by 2015. If we continue our current strategy, we will not be able to counter the threat.
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The Taliban War On Women Continues
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 14, 2010
When 22-year-old Hossai was told to quit her job by the Taliban, she refused to be bullied. She was shot and killed.
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The Afghanistan Tightrope
www.bostonglobe.com-July 13, 2010
AS US foreign policy makers wrestle about Afghanistan, three temptations must be forcefully resisted: re-asserting the US commitment to winning the insurgency war against the Taliban; weakening the US plan to begin withdrawing forces; and blocking local and regional efforts to negotiate a resolution.
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Al Qaeda In Africa
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 13, 2010
Three bombs tore through Uganda's capital of Kampala on Sunday, killing at least 74 people gathered to watch the World Cup championship, including a U.S. aid worker from Delaware. Six missionaries from a Pennsylvania church group were among the hundreds wounded. The Somali terror group al Shabab claimed responsibility yesterday, and the simultaneous attacks reveal the growing security threat of this al Qaeda franchise both to East Africa and the world.
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Pentagon's Next Mission: Cutting Back On Spending
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 09, 2010
When people from opposite ends of the political spectrum come together to agree on something in Washington, you can be pretty sure a trend is taking shape.
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Afghan Turnaround
www.nypost.com-July 09, 2010
Gen. David Petraeus has an unprece dented opportunity to seize back the momentum in Afghanistan: Neither President Obama nor Congress wants a confrontation with this general. During his honeymoon, he can write his own rules.
And he needs to. Fast.
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Sanctions alone won't work on Iran
www.washingtonpost.com-July 09, 2010
When President Obama signed into law tough, new legislative sanctions against Iran last week, he capped a month of new measures against that country's nuclear program. Earlier in June, the Obama administration achieved a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, and the European Union declared plans to adopt additional sanctions in July. This activity, the culmination of months of political and diplomatic negotiations, is welcome. Absent a broader and more robust strategy, however, sanctions alone will prove inadequate to halt Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
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An Obama Home Run
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 09, 2010
If all Barack Obama had to do as President is pick generals, his approval rating probably would be flying high. Yesterday Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that Marine General James Mattis would succeed David Petraeus as head of U.S. Central Command, which includes Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.
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As The World's Ice Melts, The Navy's Role Grows
www.bostonglobe.com-July 07, 2010
WHEN THE chief of naval operations of the United States starts rattling off global fishing statistics without notes and frets about climate change like an MIT scientist, we should all stand at attention. If Admiral Gary Roughead had his way, it would be full speed ahead toward a military strategy that considers not just nukes and nutty dictators, but also oceanic food resources and melting Arctic ice.
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A Treaty That Will Improve Our Security
www.washingtonpost.com-July 07, 2010
Even in these polarized times, anyone seeking the presidency should know that the security of the United States is too important to be treated as fodder for political posturing. Sadly, former governor Mitt Romney failed that test in arguing that ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia would be a mistake [op-ed, July 6]. He disregarded the views of the best foreign policy thinkers of the past half-century, but more important, he ignored the facts.
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The Afghan Tests Facing Petraeus
www.ft.com-July 07, 2010
When I stepped off a C-130 turboprop at Kabul airport in October 2003 to begin 19 months in command of coalition forces, Afghanistan was already famed as the graveyard of empires. Here was a nation hostile to invaders, with a population widely regarded as xenophobic fundamentalist Muslims. I was prepared to find suspicion and hostility. But what I heard instead was one question: “You Americans are not going to abandon us again, are you?”
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The Incredible, Unbendable Michael Steele
www.newsweek.com-July 06, 2010
Returning to the office after a long weekend is never easy. But that may be an understatement for Michael Steele. It was last week when the GOP chairman was caught on tape at a fundraiser claiming that the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan were "a war of Obama's choice," effectively countering the platform of the party he's paid to lead. Within hours, top conservatives were calling for his resignation. Asked about it on Sunday's This Week, Sen. John McCain said that Steele would "have to assess as to whether he can still lead the Republican Party." Steele reportedly spent the weekend working the phones trying to save his job.
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3 Years Later, Democrats Cast Petraeus In New Light
www.washingtontimes.com-July 06, 2010
In less than three years, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has risen from the brunt of ridicule by Democrats to President Obama's most valuable field general.
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Obama's Worst Foreign Mistake
www.washingtonpost.com-July 06, 2010
Given President Obama's glaring domestic policy missteps, it is understandable that the public has largely been blinded to his foreign policy failings. In fact, these may have been even more damaging to America's future.
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Titans Struggle With A Doomed War Strategy
www.bostonglobe.com-July 06, 2010
LIKE THE mythical Titans, the brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus, much was expected of Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal. It was hoped they would provide coherent answers to why their country was doing so badly in its never-ending wars in Muslim lands. As Prometheus had stolen fire from the gods, had not Petraeus snatched, if not victory, at least something better than defeat from the anarchy, insurrection, and civil war that was Iraq? Hadn’t Petraeus provided the gift of light at the end of that particular tunnel?
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The Government Pay Bonus
htttp://online.wsj.com-July 06, 2010
Pay cuts, layoffs and the highest unemployment rates in decades have reignited a debate over the relative treatment of public and private workers. USA Today reported in March that federal workers earn substantially higher wages than private sector employees who work the same types of jobs.
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Revitalizing the American Dream
www.inc.com-July 06, 2010
We need more start-ups. A lot more of them. New companies mean new ideas, new approaches, new products and services, and new jobs. What's more, in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown and the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a wave of start-ups could spark a new sense of optimism about what businesses can actually accomplish -- something else this country sorely needs.
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THE MCCHRYSTAL AFFAIR AND U.S. CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
www.fpri.org-July 05, 2010
Writing before the 2008 election, Richard Kohn, the eminent historian and student of US civil-military relations, predicted that "the new administration, like its predecessors, will wonder to what extent it can exercise civilian 'control.' If the historical pattern holds, the administration will do something clumsy or overreact, provoking even more distrust simply in the process of establishing its own authority." Recent events demonstrate that he was correct.
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One Outspoken General Does Not Make A Politicized Military
www.latimes.com-July 01, 2010
A June 23 op-ed by Bruce Ackerman that portrayed civil-military relations against the backdrop of the Gen. McChrystal affair is wildly off the mark. Dr. Ackerman's commentary presumes a rapid politicization of the U.S. military and a foreboding future of a biased officer corps involved in political partisanship. To the contrary, the vast majority of military officers are well disciplined in the principle of civilian control of the military. Modern military officers are purposefully educated on its tenets and governed by strict codes of conduct. Gen. McChrystal's regrettable actions are in no way symptomatic of a politicized officer corps.
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We Must Crush The Taliban And Al Qaeda In A 'Long War' In Afghanistan
www.latimes.com-July 01, 2010
Our policy chaos over Afghanistan shows that counter-terrorism's objectives are too limited to keep Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in safe hands, and its resources too inadequate to destroy the Taliban.
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Petraeus Brings A New Approach To The Old Strategy
www.philly.com-July 01, 2010
Our policy in Afghanistan may remain the same under Gen. David Petraeus, but his confirmation hearing this week offered fascinating clues about the very different way he will carry it out.
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The Petraeus Challenge
www.nypost.com-July 01, 2010
We're failing in Afghanistan. Confirmed yesterday as our new commander there, Gen. David Petraeus has the unenviable task of producing something President Obama can call a success.
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Why Obamanomics Has Failed
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 30, 2010
The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.
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American Soldier Still Held Captive by Taliban after One Year
John Ubaldi-June 30, 2010
All last week attention was paid to the one year mark commemorating the passing of Michael Jackson, but where is the same type of remembrance for Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl who was captured by the Taliban one year ago today. Few if any …
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A Split-Screen Tale Of Two Generals
www.nytimes.com-June 30, 2010
As one general tried to reassure Congress that she respects the military, the other general tried to reassure Congress that the military respects civilians.
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The Taliban Effect
www.latimes.com-June 30, 2010
Pakistani authorities have reacted angrily to a study released this month by the London School of Economics, which concludes that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has been systematically funding and maintaining top-level ties with the Taliban, and on a larger scale than generally believed. Despite the attention it has garnered, the report affirms what has been common knowledge among academic specialists on Afghanistan and journalists with extensive experience in that country.
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The Road to Kabul Runs Through Islamabad
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 30, 2010
Pakistani leaders are desperate to broker a deal with Karzai and the Haqqani network. Petraeus understands why.
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What Would Reconciliation Look Like?
www.washingtonpost.com-June 29, 2010
Even as the United States and the Taliban continue to pound each other on the battlefield, the two adversaries appear to be conducting parallel internal debates about what an eventual political reconciliation might involve.
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Afghanistan: Eyes Wide Shut
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 29, 2010
With a wink of its left eye, the Obama administration tells its liberal base that a year from now the U.S. will be heading for a quick Afghan exit. "Everyone knows there's a firm date," insists White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
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Obama's Detrimental Deadlines
www.washingtonpost.com-June 29, 2010
What is it with President Obama and artificial deadlines? First he set a deadline for shutting down Guantanamo by January 2010 -- yet the detention center remains open and the New York Times reports that the White House has given up on closing it before Obama's term ends. Instead of learning from that experience, Obama set another misguided deadline -- this time to begin an American withdrawal from Afghanistan by July 2011. Whether the president realizes it or not, he is going to have to abandon that deadline as well -- and the sooner he does so the better. The Guantanamo deadline only cost him some momentary embarrassment; the Afghanistan deadline could cost us a war.
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Rethinking The Way To Win In Afghanistan
www.nypost.com-June 29, 2010
With the drama over Gen. Stanley McChrystal behind us, let's focus on bringing the near-decade-long US mission in Afghanistan to a successful conclusion.
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The Key To 'Surge' Success
www.nypost.com-June 29, 2010
A commander had just been removed from America's fight in a distant Muslim country, with another general about to take his place. Almost everyone agreed that the war so far had been a failure, as the insurgents grew bolder and a fall into chaos seemed inevitable.
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One Way Out
www.nytimes.com-June 28, 2010
Here is the grim paradox of America’s involvement in Afghanistan: The darker things get and the more setbacks we suffer, the better the odds that we’ll be staying there indefinitely.
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5 Questions for General Petraeus
www.realclearpolitics.com-June 28, 2010
In a hastily-assembled hearing tomorrow, Gen. David H. Petraeus will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee as a prelude to his confirmation as the new top commander in Afghanistan
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In Afghanistan, Petraeus will have difficulty replicating his Iraq success
www.washingtonpost.com-June 27, 2010
This week's confrontation between a senior Army general and the president of the United States may have signaled the beginning of the end of the war in Afghanistan. In a year or two, President Obama will be able to say that he gave the conflict his best shot, reshaping the strategy and even putting his top guy in charge, the general who led the surge in Iraq -- but that things still didn't work out.
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The Third Depression
www.nytimes.com-June 27, 2010
Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.
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Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance
www.washingtonpost.com-June 27, 2010
Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. Not least among those values is a code of military conduct that honors the principle of civilian control while keeping the officer corps free from the taint of politics. Events of the past week -- notably the Rolling Stone profile that led to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's dismissal -- hint at the toll that nearly a decade of continuous conflict has exacted on the U.S. armed forces.
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"A WINNABLE WAR"
www.understandingwar.org-June 26, 2010
Success in Afghanistan is possible. The policy that President Obama announced in December and firmly reiterated last week is sound. So is the strategy that General Stanley McChrystal devised last summer and has been implementing this year. There have been setbacks and disappointments during this campaign, and adjustments will likely be necessary.
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Strong Enough for Tough Stains?
www.nytimes.com-June 25, 2010
OUR nation’s Congressional machinery was humming last week as legislators reconciled the differences between the labyrinthine financial reforms proposed by the Senate and the House and emerged early Friday morning with a voluminous new law in hand. They christened it the Dodd-Frank bill, after the heads of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees who drove the process toward the finish line.
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Afghanistan: The 7/11 Problem
www.washingtonpost.com-June 25, 2010
President Obama was fully justified in dismissing Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The firing offense did not rise to the level of insubordination -- this was no MacArthur undermining the commander in chief's war strategy -- but it was a serious enough show of disrespect for the president and for the entire civilian leadership to justify relief from his post.
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Petraeus's Opportunity
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 25, 2010
His selection reassures our Afghan allies that the U.S. will not begin substantial troop reductions until the Afghans can handle the insurgents on their own.
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Obama's Conflicted Call
www.washingtonpost.com-June 25, 2010
It is encouraging that President Obama, at least on foreign policy matters, still has the ability to surprise and impress.
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A Negotiated Peace?
www.washingtonpost.com-June 25, 2010
While President Obama is surging troops into Afghanistan and money into Pakistan, plans are being laid for a negotiated settlement to be reached before the beginning of the American drawdown in July 2011. Gen. David Petraeus's appointment this week as U.S. commander in Afghanistan increases the urgency of defining the terms of such a settlement.
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The Real Math of Debt Reduction
www.newsweek.com-June 25, 2010
We talk a lot about reducing the deficit, but not about what specific things need to be done to get there.
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Taming the budget deficit
www.bostonglobe.com-June 25, 2010
HOUSE MAJORITY Leader Steny Hoyer is that rare figure in Washington, an influential policy maker willing to acknowledge difficult truths in an election year.
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Why The G20 Won't Listen To Obama
www.forbes.com-June 25, 2010
The U.S. president's message of spending is out of step with the other members.
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The Afghan Conundrum
www.investors.com-June 24, 2010
President Obama was fully justified in dismissing Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The firing offense did not rise to the level of insubordination—this was no MacArthur undermining the commander in chief's war strategy—but it was a serious enough show of disrespect for the president and for the entire civilian leadership to justify relief from his post.
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The wound that Stanley McChrystal opened
www.washingtonpost.com-June 24, 2010
A general's tasks involve executing policies made by the commander in chief, plotting strategy and winning wars -- not playing politics in the media to get at civilian rivals in the government.
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McChrystal had to go
www.washingtonpost.com-June 24, 2010
In 1932, during a lunch in Albany with Rexford Tugwell, an adviser, New York Gov. Franklin Roosevelt paused to take a telephone call from Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. When the call ended, FDR referred to Long as the second-most dangerous man in America. Who, Tugwell asked, is the most dangerous? FDR answered: Douglas MacArthur.
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America needs an Afghan strategy, not an alibi
www.washingtonpost.com-June 24, 2010
I supported President Obama's decision to double American forces in Afghanistan and continue to support his objectives. The issue is whether the execution of the policy is based on premises that do not reflect Afghan realities, at least within the deadline that has been set.
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The Unsentimental Warrior
www.nytimes.com-June 24, 2010
There was no pique, and some apparent regret, as President Obama announced that he had fired his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
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Lose A General, Win A War
www.nytimes.com-June 24, 2010
FOR most of our nation’s history, the armed services have had a strong and worthy tradition of firing generals who get out of line. So for most of our presidents there would have been no question about whether to oust Gen. Stanley McChrystal for making public his differences with the White House on policy in Afghanistan. If President Obama had not fired General McChrystal, it would have been like President Truman keeping on Douglas MacArthur after his insubordination during the Korean War.
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General Wasn't The Problem
www.philly.com-June 24, 2010
I feel sorry for Stan McChrystal. He got sacked because his aides were too honest with a Rolling Stone reporter. They rashly exposed a problem that is undercutting the war effort: the infighting among civilian and military officials in Kabul and Washington.
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Will McChrystal's Dismissal Lead to a Wider Shakeup?
www.newsweek.com-June 24, 2010
Broader changes may be needed to rescue Afghanistan.
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Warfare Through 'A Soda Straw'
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 23, 2010
Wikileaks videos do not reveal the myriad cases in which our forces refrain from attacking targets because civilians are in harm's way.
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Why McChrystal Has To Go
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 23, 2010
It is intolerable for military officers to mock senior political officials, including ambassadors and the vice president.
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The Problem is Bigger than McChrystal
www.cato.org-June 23, 2010
Following up on my post from last night, I encourage you to read this news analysis by C.J. Chivers in the New York Times. Chivers focuses on the inherent tension within counterinsurgency doctrine that too many COIN advocates have neglected or ignored. The Rolling Stone article touches on these themes, but much of that story gets lost in the narrative surrounding McChrystal and his staff. Chivers is not so easily distracted. Here are a few excerpts:
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New General, Same Problem for Obama in Afghanistan
www.newsweek.com-June 23, 2010
Barack Obama, as candidate and president, in effect created the IED known as Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Now that improvised explosive device has blown up in the midst of the Obama presidency. The damage is severe, if not crippling.
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Another view on 'runaway general': Don't fire McChrystal
www.usatoday.com-June 23, 2010
Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff made major mistakes in the Rolling Stone interviews. Most troubling is why the interviews seemed necessary to anyone after McChrystal had effectively won the policy debate last fall, persuading President Obama to provide extra forces and support his rigorous counterinsurgency strategy.
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Why McChrystal Has To Go
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 23, 2010
It is intolerable for military officers to mock senior political officials, including ambassadors and the vice president.
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The Other Truman Doctrine
www.nytimes.com-June 23, 2010
RRESPECTIVE of anything he said, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, committed a clear breach of traditional standards by even agreeing to give an interview to Rolling Stone magazine. Presidents and defense secretaries make policy decisions, and military officers, from the lowest to the highest ranks, are obliged to follow orders without public comment.
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Judging McChrystal’s War
www.nytimes.com-June 23, 2010
IRRESPECTIVE of anything he said, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, committed a clear breach of traditional standards by even agreeing to give an interview to Rolling Stone magazine. Presidents and defense secretaries make policy decisions, and military officers, from the lowest to the highest ranks, are obliged to follow orders without public comment.
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What Would Lincoln Do?
www.nytimes.com-June 23, 2010
IF Abraham Lincoln’s experience is any guide, Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s fate will be determined by President Obama’s judgment of how his firing would affect the war in Afghanistan.
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What’s Second Prize?
www.nytimes.com-June 23, 2010
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s trashing of his civilian colleagues was unprofessional and may cost him his job. If so, it will be a sad end to a fine career. But no general is indispensable. What is indispensable is that when taking America surging deeper into war in Afghanistan, President Obama has to be able to answer the most simple questions at a gut level: Do our interests merit such an escalation and do I have the allies to achieve victory?
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Understating The Backbiting
www.washingtonpost.com-June 23, 2010
Sometimes media gaffes overstate the degree of dissension among policymakers. In the case of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s bizarre decision to grant “fly on the wall” access to a Rolling Stone reporter, the unvarnished comments actually understate the backbiting among these senior policymakers and their staffs.
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Gen. Stanley McChrystal's loose lips
www.latimes.com-June 22, 2010
There's nothing new about backbiting and bad chemistry among leading public officials. But when the carping comes from a senior military officer and is directed against the president and his civilian advisers, a wall has been breached.
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Seven Days in June
www.nytimes.com-June 22, 2010
So this general with the background in intelligence who is supposed to conquer Afghanistan can’t even figure out what Rolling Stone is? We’re not talking Guns & Ammo here; we’re talking the antiwar hippie magazine.
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The President and His General
www.nytimes.com-June 22, 2010
Until this week, Gen. Stanley McChrystal had a reputation for fierce self-discipline. That makes his hugely undisciplined comments in Rolling Stone magazine — including derisive quotes from his aides about Vice President Joseph Biden and other top officials — all the more puzzling and disturbing.
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Why The Afghan End-Game Is So Hard To Play
www.ft.com-June 21, 2010
Barack Obama, the US president, has said that American troops will start to withdraw from Afghanistan in a year from now; eventually Nato forces will leave and at some point dialogue with the Taliban will begin. So Nato is now planning the end-game, aiming to weaken the Taliban before negotiations start by first driving them from Kandahar. But it is far from clear how the end-game will unfold. With concern rising about the low level of Afghan civilian support, the Kandahar operation may not even start before autumn, despite increasing impatience in Nato capitals.
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Gulf Disaster Overshadows Gates' Efforts
www.newschief.com-June 21, 2010
While President Barack Obama is deploying very muscular military rhetoric to compare BP's oil-pollution catastrophe to war, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been diligently dealing with our vexing, very real wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Too bad this is not getting many headlines.
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G8, G20: A View of Canada's Summits
www.cfr.org-June 21, 2010
On June 25, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomes the Group of Eight (G8) to Muskoka, Ontario. Two days later, the action shifts to Toronto, where he convenes the Group of Twenty (G20). Together, the two events symbolize an epochal shift--from an era of Western dominance to a new, multipolar age.
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Obama's Energy Pipe Dreams
www.newsweek.com-June 21, 2010
The President's vilification of the oil industry is understandable, but not intelligent.
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Recovery or Relapse: The Role of the G-20 in the Global Economy
www.brookings.edu-June 21, 2010
On June 26, heads of state and government of the Group of 20 (G-20) will meet in Toronto, which is the fourth time they will convene since the start of the global economic crisis. At last September’s G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, leaders seemed cautious yet fairly optimistic and confident that the worst of the crisis was behind them and that the world economy was on the path toward recovery. During Pittsburgh, leaders focused on the global coordinated actions needed to ensure a full economic recovery that would deliver sustainable, long-term and balanced global growth.
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Why Military Code Demands McChrystal's Resignation
www.newsweek.com-June 21, 2010
The most important issue at hand in the furor over Gen. Stanley McChrystal's acerbic comments in Rolling Stone is the central one in a democracy: civilian control over the military.
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We Can Still Win The War
www.nydailynews.com-June 20, 2010
Recent reports from Afghanistan paint a dark picture of the counterinsurgency efforts in the Taliban-infected south and east of the country. This spring's operation in Marja, initially proclaimed a military success, sputtered when the Afghan "government in a box" failed to show up.
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Mort Zuckerman: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur
www.usnews.com-June 19, 2010
President Obama came into office as the heir to a great foreign policy legacy enjoyed by every recent U.S. president. Why? Because the United States stands on top of the power ladder, not necessarily as the dominant power, but certainly as the leading one. As such we are the sole nation capable of exercising global leadership on a whole range of international issues from security, trade, and climate to counterterrorism. We also benefit from the fact that most countries distrust the United States far less than they distrust one another, so we uniquely have the power to build coalitions. As a result, most of the world still looks to Washington for help in their region and protection against potential regional threats.
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Our Must Keep Deadline
www.washingtonpost.com-June 18, 2010
When he ordered his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama pledged that U.S. troops "will begin to come home" in the summer of 2011. Discouraging reports from the war zone should make him more determined to keep his promise -- and Americans more insistent on holding him to it.
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Poor Transition
www.washingtonpost.com-June 18, 2010
IRAQ IS at a tipping point. The parliament elected in March's elections was finally seated this week, but the formation of a new government is still weeks or months away. Meanwhile, a big withdrawal of U.S. forces is going forward -- the number of troops will be halved, to 50,000, by the end of the summer. If a stable government forms by then and Iraqi security forces are able to fill the gap left by American units, the U.S. mission in Iraq will be on the homestretch to a successful conclusion.
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Waiting Games In Afghanistan
www.washingtonpost.com-June 17, 2010
Evidently Hamid Karzai did not get the memo on terminology. U.S. military commanders have stopped using the word "operation" to describe the drive, now delayed, against the Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city. This word connotes danger and stirs dread among the population, whose allegiance is the prize for which counterinsurgency is waged. But Afghanistan's president, speaking there on Sunday, anticipated a "purification operation," saying "this operation requires sacrifice."
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Competing Goals
www.latimes.com-June 17, 2010
The news from Afghanistan has been bad lately. The military campaign to win control of Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, has slowed to a crawl. Taliban insurgents have filtered back into parts of southern Afghanistan that U.S. Marines had cleared in the spring. President Hamid Karzai, the erratic leader of Afghanistan's civilian government, has given only halfhearted support to the U.S.-led military effort — and has done little to clean up the corruption that undermines public support for his regime.
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Deadline Is Causing Trouble
www.philly.com-June 17, 2010
President Obama's commitment to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next summer is hampering the U.S. effort.
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The Military Money Pit
www.bostonglobe.com-June 17, 2010
BROODING OVER the deficit is Washington’s civil religion, and as the budget gap exploded over the last two years, we’ve witnessed a revival. From the Tea Party to the White House, the deficit is a driving concern. Fear of adding to it has thwarted Democratic efforts at another stimulus. Anger over it could determine who controls Congress. No force in politics is more powerful.
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The Afghan Roller Coaster
www.washingtonpost.com-June 17, 2010
"THE CONDUCT of a counterinsurgency operation is a roller-coaster experience," Gen. David H. Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. That may be the one point about Afghanistan on which everyone can agree. Gen. Petraeus made the case that, six months after President Obama launched a new strategy, the "trajectory . . . has generally been upward." Senators from both parties responded by pointing out the evidence of a contrary momentum, including an erosion of initial gains in southern Afghanistan and what seems to be a malignant mistrust between the administration and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
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On Iran Sanctions, Incrementalism Rules
www.newsweek.com-June 16, 2010
If a bad man was about to attack you, and there was no escape, would you tackle him one limb at a time? Go for one leg, and then the arm, and then maybe the other leg, one after the other? Or would you try to take the bad man down all at once, in any way you could?
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Obama fried in oil
www.bostonhearld.com-June 16, 2010
This time he really, really means it.
Yes, on Day 57 of the worst oil spill in the nation’s history, President Barack Obama made yet another attempt to convince the American people that he’s in charge, that he cares and that he’s determined to have BP pay for the “environmental degradation” it has caused.
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BP—Blah Performance
www.newsweek.com-June 16, 2010
President Obama's Oval Office speech about the Gulf oil spill was almost enough to make you miss President George W. Bush. Maybe not the actual presidency of George W. Bush, but at least the platonic ideal of the presidency of George W. Bush—the MBA president, the chief executive as CEO.
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Bring on the Barack and Tony Show
www.washingtonpost.com-June 16, 2010
The big question about President Obama's sit-down Wednesday with BP's Tony Hayward is, "Why didn't this happen six weeks ago?"
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In Kyrgyz Crisis, Opportunity Knocks
www.washingtonpost.com-June 16, 2010
Watching the deteriorating security situation in Kyrgyzstan, we have a Cold War reflex to forecast a new flash point between the United States and Russia. In reality, it's the opposite -- this remote and feeble Central Asian country is offering a new opportunity for Moscow and Washington to work as partners.
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Afghanistan's Real Gold
www.washingtonpost.com-June 16, 2010
Amid all the dark news from Afghanistan, every now and then a sliver of light slips through the cracks.
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Afghan War Becoming a Bloody Farce
www.realclearpolitics.com-June 16, 2010
Since last summer, President Obama has publicly doubted whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai's corruption and incompetence make him a fit partner for our policy goals in Afghanistan. Now, according to Saturday's New York Times:
"Mr. Karzai (has) lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan."
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Fainting Spells
www.slate.com-June 16, 2010
Gen. David Petraeus fainted during this morning's Senate hearing on the war in Afghanistan. A case of dehydration, the commander said afterward. But it was hard not to see his collapse as grim metaphor.
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From the Oval Office
www.nytimes.com-June 15, 2010
Americans have been anxiously waiting for President Obama to take full charge of the gulf oil catastrophe. On Tuesday, in his first address from the Oval Office, he vowed to “fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes” and declared that “we will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused.”
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Who's The Enemy In The War On Terror?
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 15, 2010
In the new National Security Strategy released by the White House last month, the Obama administration rightly reaffirms that America remains a nation at war. Unfortunately, it refuses to identify our enemy in this war as what it is: violent Islamist extremism.
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A War We Fought Before
www.washingtonpost.com-June 15, 2010
Gregor Samsa, the general counsel of an exterminating company, was in New York on business when he was hit on the head by a flowerpot (geraniums) being watered by one Dorothy Obdean three floors above street level. This happened in 1970. Samsa went into a coma from which he awakened only last week. Almost immediately, he read the major newspapers with astonishment. "For some reason, they've changed the name of Vietnam to Afghanistan," he said.
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Afghan Staying Power
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 15, 2010
Some six months into the 2007 Iraqi surge, skeptics from both parties and the media pack lambasted the Bush Administration for a spike in American casualties and the absence of quick results. Six months into the Afghan surge, the Obama Administration is taking similar flak. President Obama, who opposed the Iraqi surge before it paid dividends, might now—at least privately—sympathize with George W. Bush.
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A surge of problems in Afghanistan
www.washingtonpost.com-June 14, 2010
Bad news from Afghanistan came in a steady stream last week, filling the back end of newscasts preoccupied with the gulf oil spill and primary elections. At least 23 NATO soldiers were killed; a U.S. helicopter was shot down; a suicide bomber killed dozens at a Kandahar wedding.
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Defense Cuts: Start Overseas
www.cato.org-June 14, 2010
Recent reporting has claimed that the Pentagon is fighting to trim the defense budget, valiantly protecting taxpayer dollars against a wasteful Congress and tackling the ballooning federal deficit.
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The Gulf Spill, the Financial Crisis and Government Failure
www.cato.org-June 12, 2010
The Gulf oil spill and the global financial crisis both demonstrate the failings of big government. Partisan politics obscures the linkage, with the consequence that each political party repeats the mistakes of the other as its turn to govern arrives.
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Our Longest War
www.washingtontimes.com-June 11, 2010
June marks the 104th month of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan and, consequently, America's longest war in history (Vietnam lasted 103 months). It would be less significant if we were not fumbling on all fronts in Afghanistan, from security to development to governance. The disconcerting indication of this mile marker is not simply that Afghanistan trumps Vietnam as the longest war in U.S. history, but that there is no guarantee that by the 116th month, July 2011, the bulk of U.S. presence will leave as promised.
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Spreading thoughts of freedom among North Koreans
www.washingtonpost.com-June 11, 2010
How does a mind -- born into comprehensive tyranny, conditioned for loyalty, fed on lies -- eventually change? What shifts or clicks or breaks?
"I cannot pinpoint one event," says Kim Seung-Min, a former North Korean army officer who defected in the 1990s. "I was very loyal to Kim Jong Il and to the party." His father was a well-known professor and writer; his mother a journalist. But he recalls the leaflet drops from across the border that showed pictures of South Korea. "One image stuck with me. People were wearing all sorts of different clothes. That was remarkable to me."
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The myth of Iran's 'isolation'
www.washingtonpost.com-June 11, 2010
In announcing the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran, President Obama stressed not once but twice Iran's increasing "isolation" from the world. This claim is not surprising considering that after 16 months of an "extended hand" policy, in response to which Iran accelerated its nuclear program -- more centrifuges, more enrichment sites, higher enrichment levels -- Iranian "isolation" is about the only achievement to which the administration can even plausibly lay claim.
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Without White House muscle, treaties left in limbo
www.washingtonpost.com-June 11, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month in favor of the new START treaty with Russia. President Obama signed the nuclear arms reduction agreement April 8 in Prague and submitted the voluminous treaty documentation for Senate ratification just four weeks later. The lightning speed at which this was sent to the Senate and a Cabinet-level hearing scheduled reflects START's importance to the administration. But the priority the Obama administration has placed on START contrasts sharply with its approach to other international agreements pending before the Senate.
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Putting Bite In Iran Sanctions
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 11, 2010
The Obama administration scored a significant diplomatic success Wednesday when it persuaded the United Nations Security Council to approve new economic sanctions on Iran for failing to curb its nuclear program.
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Obama Foreign Policy 2.0
www.time.com-June 10, 2010
When the White House announced its National Security Strategy last month, it titled it A Blueprint for Pursuing the World That We Seek. A better title might have been The Fun Is Definitely Over. The document used the phrase "hard choices" three times, called for "a disciplined approach to setting priorities" and predicted "trade-offs among competing programs and activities." The nature of those trade-offs was never spelled out, but the implication was clear: America doesn't have as much money and power as we once thought. We can no longer conduct foreign policy on a blank check.
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How Iraq Can Fortify Its Fragile Democracy
www.washingtonpost.com-June 10, 2010
Millions of Iraqis risked their lives in March to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote. Turnout was high -- exceeding 60 percent -- across the regions, ethnicities and sects that form our diverse nation. Iraqis are eager to put violence and strife behind them. Yet three months later, Iraq has no functional or stable government. This uncertainty threatens not just Iraqi society and democracy but also the region.
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China's Got A Secret
www.foreignpolicy.com-June 09, 2010
Every country has its diplomatic style: Protocol matters to the British; elusiveness matters to Russia; and fortitude matters to France and Brazil. For China and its military, it's all about ambiguity. Beijing has become the master of winning arguments without actually having them.
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Obama's Intelligence Retooling
www.washingtonpost.com-June 09, 2010
President Obama fired Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence last month because of frustration with the lack of coordination among spy agencies and a fear that the former Navy four-star was too prone to give personal opinions rather than hard information.
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Another Military Man For A Civilian Post
www.washingtonpost.com-June 09, 2010
President Obama's nomination of retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper as director of national intelligence continues a tendency of appointing military men to positions that generally should be reserved for civilians. Obama is already relying on retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones -- who served as commandant of the Corps -- as his national security adviser. If Clapper is confirmed, Obama will get his daily intelligence briefing from a retired military man, then turn to another former officer to hear about his national security options.
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The Little Engine That Might
www.washingtonpost.com-June 09, 2010
The Pentagon doesn't want it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it's unnecessary. Former President George W. Bush was against it, as is Barack Obama, who has threatened to veto a defense authorization bill that includes it.
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Where are the Jobs?
www.nypost.com-June 08, 2010
Who needs a debt commission when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is on the case?
He wants to allow federal agencies to redirect half of any unnecessary, unspent money in their budgets to other initiatives and half to deficit reduction. Currently, agencies must return all money they don't spend, giving them an incentive to spend it all.
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Afghanistan's Troubles Far From Over
www.washingtontimes.com-June 08, 2010
Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's policy of ignoring the rampant opium-heroin trade in Afghanistan has carried over into the Obama administration. Neither president - Afghanistan's nor our own - mentioned the opium epidemic that is ravaging Afghanistan during a joint news conference at the White House last month, and none of the congressional leaders - majority or minority, House or Senate - included the drug issue in statements during Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's Capitol Hill visits.
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Who Will Protect The CIA?
www.washingtonpost.com-June 08, 2010
CIA Director Leon Panetta made an unusual visit to the agency's Counterterrorism Center last year to buck up his troops. Morale had been devastated by the release of highly classified details of the CIA's interrogation program and the growing calls for prosecution of those involved.
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The 'Wikileaker' And The White House
www.nypost.com-June 08, 2010
Yesterday brought the welcome news that a 22-year-old soldier had been busted for passing classified gun-camera tapes and documents to Wikileaks. If proven guilty, Spc. Bradley Manning needs to do serious prison time.
But that's where the good news ends. Spc. Manning was only caught because he bragged about his crime to a former hacker, who turned him in to the Army. Our government still isn't serious about plugging classified leaks in wartime.
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Gates On China
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 08, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a notable contribution to the free world's defense this weekend, and it didn't involve money, missiles or troops. He talked frankly about how China's military expansion threatens peace and security in the Pacific.
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‘A Very Deep Hole’
www.nytimes.com-June 07, 2010
I know the president has a lot on his mind, but the No. 1 problem facing the U.S. continues to fester, and that problem is unemployment.
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What does China want?
www.washingtonpost.com-June 07, 2010
Over the past few months, foreign diplomats have privately groused to me about a world power's arrogant foreign policy. Except that they're talking about China, not the United States.
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Stop the Federal Spending Spree
www.cato.org-June 07, 2010
Runaway federal spending has emerged as the chief issue on the minds of voters heading into the fall election season — and for good reason.
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Slouching Towards Athens
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 05, 2010
Our friends across the Atlantic are fond of saying that Europeans work to live while Americans live to work. According to the data, they are basically right. Statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that while the average Italian, for example, enjoys 42 days of vacation per year, the average American has 16.
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Forget PIIGS, US Debt Is Out of Control
www.minyanville.com-June 04, 2010
The numbers are almost unimaginable, and unless they're addressed soon, depreciation of the dollar looms.
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The Sobering Message in May's Jobs Report
www.dailyfinance.com-June 04, 2010
An initial analysis of the 431,000 jobs total reveals a May jobs report that was a major disappointment. Dismal might be a better word, as private sector hiring is still way too low.
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Israel refuses to commit suicide
www.seattletimes.com-June 04, 2010
The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.
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Singling Out Israel is Nothing New
www.realclearpolitics.com-June 03, 2010
In our topsy-turvy contemporary world, where fashionable opinion can be counted upon to turn any moral issue upside down, Israel has again been singled out for expressions of indignation and loathing. This is because she stooped to defending herself again, against a scheme designed to break the embargo that prevents the Hamas terrorist organization from fully arming itself.
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Introducing U.S. Cyber Command
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 03, 2010
More than 100 foreign intelligence agencies and militaries threaten U.S. defense networks.
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Drones Take Toll On Al-Qaeda Leaders
www.usatoday.com-June 03, 2010
Amid environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and diplomatic disaster in the Mediterranean comes this piece of welcome news from western Pakistan: Al-Qaeda confirmed that its No. 3 leader, Mustafa al-Yazid (also known as Sheik Saeed al-Masri), was killed in an unmanned drone strike last month.
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Iran's Nuclear Progress
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 03, 2010
Any day now, the U.N. Security Council will take up sanctions on Iran, which the Obama Administration considers a culmination of its year-plus-long diplomatic game plan. Alas in the real world beyond Turtle Bay, Iran moves ever closer to building an atomic bomb, and neither the U.S. nor its allies appear to possess any ideas, much less a serious strategy, to stop it.
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Is President Obama's Carter moment nearing?
www.washingtonpost.com-June 03, 2010
"This is the worst," a Democratic friend exclaimed over the phone on Tuesday, the first day back at work after the Memorial Day weekend. I knew without asking what he meant -- the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico that dominated television coverage and was into its second month with no quick solution in sight.
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Israel's self-inflicted wound
www.latimes.com-June 02, 2010
There's still much to be learned about its raid on a Gaza flotilla. But it's clear that Israel has done damage to itself.
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The States Of War
www.nytimes.com-June 01, 2010
SO far in 2010, the story from the battlefields is one of continued gradual progress in Iraq, some headway in Pakistan and uncertainty in Afghanistan. The other big headline is that United States force totals in Afghanistan now exceed those in Iraq for the first time since early 2003.
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America Is Still The Best Guarantor Of Freedom And Prosperity
www.latimes.com-June 01, 2010
The U.S. still possesses unprecedented power projection capabilities, and just as important, it is armed with the goodwill of countless countries that know the U.S. offers protection from bullies.
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Reflecting On Who Should Be Called Soldier, And Who Shouldn't
www.nytimes.com-June 01, 2010
On yet another Memorial Day, hundreds of people made their way Monday to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, the colonnaded memorial built more than a century ago at Riverside Drive and 89th Street to honor New York’s Civil War dead.
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Backward At Bagram
www.nytimes.com-June 01, 2010
One of the most vital jobs of the federal courts is to check excessive claims of presidential power. The courts have stepped up to the task at important times since President George W. Bush embarked on a campaign after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to create an imperial presidency. Sadly, a recent ruling by a federal appeals court on the American military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan was not one of those times.
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Israel's Gaza Flotilla Fiasco
htttp://online.wsj.com-June 01, 2010
Israel's actions in boarding the flotilla of ships bound for the Gaza Strip were entirely justified and perhaps even unavoidable. Unfortunately they turned into a tactical and strategic fiasco that does further damage to the Jewish State's tattered i |
