To have read the neoconservative press here over the past month, one would think that former Secretary of State James Baker poses the biggest threat to the United States and Israel since Saddam Hussein. As the ur-realist of U.S. Middle East policy who once had the...
When I first put forward my thesis that we are suffering from what I call the Bizarro Effect – the inversion of moral laws as well as the rules of logic – it was just a hypothetical, a tentative assessment of the consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I...
Updated at 7:25 p.m. EST, Dec. 7, 2006 At least 11 U.S. servicemembers died in three separate incidents in Iraq on Wednesday. A 12th soldier died on Thursday from wounds received on Wednesday. Meanwhile, at least 93 Iraqis were killed or found dead, 114 more were...
Almost every war sees the emergence of a weapon that is considered decisive or revolutionary. The English longbow – with its ability to kill in great numbers at long range – gave England's armies the edge in medieval wars on the continent for nearly three...
Updated at 11:35 p.m. EST, Dec. 5, 2006 Attacks in Baghdad and an intense battle in Ramadi easily brought today's tally to 191 Iraqis killed or found dead and 91 injured. Also, one U.S. soldier was killed and five more wounded when militiamen attacked their patrol in...
The lame-duck Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee seems determined to force through confirmation of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. The hurry is synthetic – and totally unnecessary. I know, I know – everyone but...
Finally, the president and the New York Times agree. In a news conference with the Iraqi prime minister last week, George W. Bush insisted that there would be no "graceful exit" or withdrawal from Iraq; that this was not "realism." The next day the Times, in a...
During last summer's Israeli-Hezbollah war, Condi Rice assured us that we were witnessing the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." Condi may be right. But that new Middle East appears to be one in which U.S. influence is visibly waning and America is on the way out....
The conservative movement in the United States has been stamped out, not by liberals but by neoconservatives. Conservative philanthropic foundations, conservative print media, and conservative think tanks have been taken over by neoconservatives, who have exiled real...
As the new Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress considers whether to revisit the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), the administration of President George W. Bush is proposing still more restrictions on detainees in U.S. custody. The government has proposed...
