Ivan Eland

The Bush administration may live in a bubble of "unreality" regarding its foreign policy in Iraq, but neoconservatives inhabit a parallel universe on Iran. Unbelievably, despite the fact that the U.S. quagmire in Iraq has greatly weakened the U.S. position vis-à-vis Iran, the neocons are pushing for military action against that theocratic regime. According to … Continue reading “Iran and North Korea Will Not Be Denied Nukes”

The Iraq War has made refugees of millions of Iraqis. They have been ethnically cleansed or displaced to other locations both inside the country, to neighboring countries, and overseas. Yet the Bush administration, the creator of the chaos and mayhem in Iraq, has done little to help them. According to NBC News, since April 2003, … Continue reading “Bush Should Take Responsibility for Iraqi Refugees”

The Bush administration has decided its new model for a long-term solution in Iraq is Korea. It’s an attempt to stifle the inevitable comparisons of the Iraq quagmire to Vietnam and a way to justify the eventual reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq (to take the heat off Republican candidates in the 2008 elections), while … Continue reading “Korea the Model”

The Bush administration has blown chances to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, to win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now to have any chance of maintaining a stable nuclear-armed Pakistan. Like U.S. policy toward the shah’s Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, the Bush administration, despite a rhetorical commitment to spread democracy around … Continue reading “Pakistan Is Going Down the Road of the Shah’s Iran”

After initially spurning the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) recommendations, President Bush now seems inclined toward the ISG’s recommendation of transforming the U.S. military’s role from fighting insurgents and militias into a smaller force that would train Iraqi forces in seeming perpetuity. Although this solution would lower U.S. casualties, and perhaps increase Republican chances in the … Continue reading “Decentralization: Iraq’s Only Hope”

With its usual tin ear for public relations, the Bush administration provided another Kodak moment of incompetent belligerence by yet again sending a high-level administration official to use an aircraft carrier as a prop for a hawkish rant. Vice President Dick Cheney did manage to refrain from displaying another "Mission Accomplished" banner during his address … Continue reading “Mission Accomplished – for Iran”

The Bush administration and Congress have put too much faith in governments – the U.S. as well as the Iraqi – to remedy the chaos in Iraq. To keep the pressure on the administration for eventual U.S. troop withdrawals, the Democrats have already begun to blame the Iraqi government for not meeting benchmarks for progress … Continue reading “Time for Iraqi Self-Determination”

President Bush’s plan to deploy missile defenses in Central Europe will reduce U.S. security, not enhance it. Installing radar for tracking incoming missiles in the Czech Republic and anti-missile interceptors in Poland could do more harm than good. Ostensibly, the European radar and interceptors are aimed at the future threat of nuclear-armed Iranian missiles. But … Continue reading “Missile Defense May Do
More Harm Than Good”

Michael Chertoff, President Bush’s secretary of Homeland Security, desperately tried to refute Zbigniew Brzezinski’s cogent charge that the administration has hyped the “war on terror” to promote a “culture of fear,” in a recent Washington Post opinion piece. In addition to shamefully smearing Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser, by associating him with the … Continue reading “Absurd Analogies Won’t
Stop Terrorism”

America’s problems in Afghanistan and Iraq may have one positive effect: They will cause the U.S. public to withhold support for future military interventions that are not absolutely necessary for U.S. security. That’s exactly what has happened in the past, and there’s no reason to believe the current failed adventures will be different. In the … Continue reading “Will Current Disasters Curtail Future Interventions?”