Month: March 2009

In a recent issue of Newsweek, the journal’s inexplicably renowned Muslim-world and foreign-policy expert Fareed Zakaria had a cover story called "Learning to Live With Radical Islam." To my surprise, I received a call from Newsweek editor Will Tacy, who said that the journal was canvassing other "experts" for a 700-word comment on Zakaria’s article … Continue reading “Noninterventionists Need Not Apply”

Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." If Scott were still alive, he might well have been describing the state of U.S. diplomacy at the dawn of the Obama era. Admittedly, Obama’s focus on the economy leaves little room for creative thinking in the foreign … Continue reading “Tangled Webs”

"If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying." – Anonymous U.S. military officer As a naval aviator pal of mine once remarked, cadets in our military academies spend the summer before their freshman year learning an arcane honor code and spend the next four years learning how to violate it without getting caught. So is it … Continue reading “The Long-War Generals”

Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." If Scott were still alive, he might well have been describing the state of U.S. diplomacy at the dawn of the Obama era. Admittedly, Obama’s focus on the economy leaves little room for creative thinking in the foreign … Continue reading “Tangled Webs”

After my column last week on Afghanistan was published I got an exasperated e-mail from my old friend Dave Redick, who has a fair amount of potentially pro-freedom activity underway, complaining that he had Googled the piece for the words "oil" and "pipeline" and found nary a mention. Because of that lack, he figured I … Continue reading “Afghanistan: All About Oil?”

Updated at 5:07 p.m. EST, Mar. 23, 2009 An astounding serious of bombings and other attacks killed at least 45 Iraqis and wounded 96 more across the country. Meanwhile, Iraq’s Interior Minister said that a hiring freeze for security forces will not affect the U.S. drawdown; however, Turkish leaders are separately discussing their relationship with … Continue reading “Monday: 45 Iraqis Killed, 96 Wounded”

After my column last week on Afghanistan was published I got an exasperated e-mail from my old friend Dave Redick, who has a fair amount of potentially pro-freedom activity underway, complaining that he had Googled the piece for the words "oil" and "pipeline" and found nary a mention. Because of that lack, he figured I … Continue reading “Afghanistan: All About Oil?”

The most important sentence written in Israel this week was lost in the general tumult of exciting events. Really exciting: In a final act of villainy, typical of his whole tenure as prime minister, Ehud Olmert abandoned the captive soldier, Gilad Shalit. Ehud Barak decided that the Labor Party must join the ultra-right government, which … Continue reading “‘At War With the Palestinian People’”

Author’s note: The following is the text of a talk given in Paris on March 21, at the “Prendre le Moyens de la paix au XXI siecle,” which I believe roughly translates into “Prospects for Peace in the 21st Century,” a conference sponsored by Bernardins College and the Sorbonne. I am not cheered by the … Continue reading “The American Empire: A Finale”

Bosnian Serb leaders have threatened to withdraw from Bosnia-Herzegovina, the decentralized entity created by the 1995 Dayton Accords, which ended a brutal civil war in the Balkans that killed more than 100,000 people in the early 1990s. Under the accords, Bosnia-Herzegovina were partitioned into a confederation of the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Critics … Continue reading “Warning from Bosnia”