Victory at Last!

[Note for Readers: Last week, I wrote an address for the president, "The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won't)," which got a fair amount of attention. Now that the president has given a far more predictable speech, I thought some of you might still be...

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Out of Iraq, Into the Gulf

So here's the mystery. You have a country that only recently had upward of 300 military bases, monster to micro, in a single war-torn land, Iraq. It probably now has something like 300 bases combined in Iraq and Afghanistan (where base-building is on the rise)....

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Afghanistan as a Patronage Machine

It's now a commonplace of the Afghan War. Western leaders in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Washington, as well as on flying visits to Kabul or even Kandahar, excoriate Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the "corruption" of his government. In return for their ongoing...

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Drone Race to a Known Future

For drone freaks (and these days Washington seems full of them), here's the good news: Drones are hot! Not long ago – 2006 to be exact – the Air Force could barely get a few armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the air at once; now, the number is 38; by 2011, it...

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Why Obama’s Iran Policy Will Fail

There's an old joke that goes something like this: A self-absorbed fellow, meeting a friend, launches into an endless soliloquy about himself, then abruptly stops and says, "Well, enough about me. Now, tell me what you think of me." Sometimes Washington has...

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