Alan Bock

I know that being a lame duck can make presidents act strangely, and this president has never had anything more than a nodding relationship with reality itself, let alone a deep-seated concern for truth. But it seems to me that President Bush has become almost pathological in his determination to sell the public on the … Continue reading “Allergic to the Truth”

It’s not a bad idea to step back a few paces and remember the track record of those doing the estimating. Any discussion of a threat estimate from the vaunted U.S. intelligence "community" must begin with an acknowledgment that U.S. intelligence has often gotten things wrong, and perhaps done so more often than not. Even … Continue reading “Getting It Wrong”

A summary of a draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism that has been leaked so much that the pitcher may have gone dry by now reportedly concludes “that al-Qaeda has reconstituted its core structure along the Pakistani border and may now be a stronger and more resilient organization than it appeared a … Continue reading “A Deadly Diversion”

By the time this sees cyberprint more is likely to be known. Beyond the certainty that it was much too early on Friday to draw many of the conclusions some talking heads on television were speculating about, it’s prudent to wait for more facts before taking hard-and-fast lessons. At the least, however, the apparent thwarted … Continue reading “London: The Iraq Connection”

The major offensive begun earlier this week in Iraq is curious in a number of ways – so curious that it’s tempting to view it as a desperate move calculated to gain some semblance of progress or apparent progress in the face of the disappointing performance (or perhaps downright failure) of the "surge" strategy that … Continue reading “A Curious Offensive”

What we are seeing in the Middle East, highlighted by the ascension of Hamas in Gaza and a looming civil war among Palestinians, is the virtually complete unraveling of the American enterprise and the country’s influence in the region. Wherever the hand of George W. Bush has meddled the result has been destabilization, chaos, confusion, … Continue reading “Things Fall Apart”

Well, it looks as if Russian President Vladimir Putin has snookered President Bush – and most West European leaders as well – during the run-up to the G-8 meeting in Germany. After purposely raising the temperature of his rhetoric and suggesting that he might start re-aiming some of Russia’s missiles toward Europe, he turned up … Continue reading “What’s Up With Putin?”

If you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how the CIA and later the United States as a whole coped with the terrorist threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and later invaded Iraq on specious grounds, this relentlessly self-justifying book by former CIA Director George Tenet is … Continue reading “Hardly the Whole Truth but…”

Even as the United States and Iran seem to be moving toward direct talks over the security situation in Iraq, the symbiotic relationship between President Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is flourishing in ways that seem to guarantee continued hostility. President Bush in his al-Qaeda dominated news conference Thursday, did not neglect to mention … Continue reading “Iranian Rumblings”

President Bush has made one of the most curious, perhaps even baffling, appointments in recent memory, anointing three-star Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute as the administration’s "war czar," to have direct control, perhaps even operational control, over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s tough to figure what it’s all about. Is this is a … Continue reading “A Czar’s Half-Life”