This from my Global Spin entry today:
As NATO’s war in Libya entered its 100th day on Monday, an end to the conflict may be in sight — but not necessarily a decisive one. Military and diplomatic signs point increasingly towards some measure of compromise by both sides in shaping an outcome that neither the regime nor the rebels
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Bandol, France
Attached herewith is an important essay on the long term implications of the Netanyahu – Obama spectacle of late May. The author, William R. Polk, has kindly granted me permission to distribute it.
Polk is one of the most knowledgeable observers of the Middle East as well as the general politics of
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The fighting season in Afghanistan is in full swing, and the early reports indicate this one will be tough. After last year’s surge, American units, and the Afghan Army and police they’re partnered with, will be fighting to hold the areas they paid for dearly a year ago. One of the key provinces will be Kandahar.
In the months …
Memorial Day is a strange holiday when so many Americans are disconnected from the wars now underway. Did you know that over the past week, more than a dozen U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan? It’s easy for me to keep track: I get Pentagon press releases every time a U.S. soldier is killed, sprinkled in among those …
It is no surprise that both President Bush and now President Obama support the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Still, some sections of Obama’s Middle East speech yesterday and President Bush’s second inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2005 are striking.
Here is President Bush:
Colleague Massimo Calabresi has a marginally sunnier view of the President’s imminent Middle East speech this morning than Tony Karon did last night:
In his much-hyped speech on the Middle East scheduled for Thursday, President Barack Obama will argue that the region’s anti-autocratic uprisings and the death of Osama bin Laden have
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Time‘s Tony Karon weighs in on our Global Spin blog on what to listen for in President Obama’s Middle East speech Thursday:
Why would he address the Arab world at a moment when his policies have little hope of reversing diminished U.S. standing? After all, the Arab consensus views Obama has having failed miserably to deliver on the
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