The U.S. State Department is flying unarmed drones over Iraq to protect the 16,000 U.S. diplomats and other Americans working in the U.S.’s largest embassy. Washington and Baghdad debated for years, off and on, whether or not …
Foreign Policy
Snapshots From Afghanistan…
You can listen to generals testifying before Congress all you want – and chat with troops in, or just back, from Afghanistan – but nothing gives you a sense of how things are going as does listening to the folks the U.S. is …
“Obama’s Selective Sanctimony”
Former TIME correspondent Adam Zagorin, long one of the nation’s top torture-trackers, weighs in on the Obama Administration’s attitude toward torture – and doesn’t like what he sees:
Torture! The Obama Administration is
…
Would Assad’s Fall Limit the Nuclear Menace in the Middle East?
As Bashar Assad looks more internationally isolated by the day — and far more vulnerable to Western economic sanctions than uber-bad boy Iran — it behooves us to think through what general advantages accrue with his eventual …
A New, Improved (and Bigger!) `Arc of Crisis’?
21%
“When we talked about this in the government, the consensus was that [attacking Iran] would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent -- an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret.”
Same Old, Same Old At Japan’s Ministry
TOKYO – Japan’s new Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka seems to have done the impossible: He’s gotten off to an even worse start than his predecessor, who was fired after just four months on the job.
Tanaka is to meet with …
Talking About Talking To The Taliban
It seems to be a hot issue, for reasons that aren’t completely clear. Everyone involved knows the U.S. has to come to some sort of accommodation with at least some elements of the Taliban, even if it has to begin in Qatar. …
Better Late Than Never: The Afghan War Handbook
After a decade of war in Afghanistan, there’s a new guidebook out on just who we’re fighting. It’s The Afghan Way of War by Robert Johnson, Oxford historian. It is his subtitle – How and Why They Fight – that should be required reading for the leaders of both the U.S. and U.K., as well as the grunts on Afghan soil. …
Defusing the Iranian Crisis
Attached herewith is an essay written by William R. Polk outlining a strategy for diffusing the Iranian crisis. I am posting it with his permission. He is a former State Department official — and historian and foreign policy …
The Perfect Headline on the Silent Sino-American Limited Liability Partnership
Comes from Bloomberg:
China Gets Cheaper Iran Oil as U.S. Picks Up Tab for Hormuz Straits Patrols
Brilliant huh?
But a wonderful capture of the illogic of Obama’s “strategic pivot” to East Asia: the more we try to hem in …
Marines on Okinawa: Time to Leave?
TOKYO – More than six decades after U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Okinawa, it may finally be time for them to go home. Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday fired his defense minister, in part for missteps and verbal …