As a follow-on to our breezy review of the Foreign Relations Committee’s report, here’s a serious assessment of what the endgame in Afghanistan might look like, from STRATFOR’s George Friedman. The gist: The United States was always aware of the limits of Pakistani assistance. The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear [...]
Recently the Senate Foreign Relations Committee produced a report on how things are going in Afghanistan, and I’ve given it a careful going-over. Despite my natural optimism, I’ll confess it’s left me a little chopfallen. I’ve excerpted a few snippets below: Foreign aid, when misspent, can fuel corruption, distort labor and goods markets, undermine the [...]
Here’s a salient item from John McCreary at NightWatch: Israel: On 19 June the Defense Forces will begin a nationwide civil defense exercise, called Turning Point 5, that will include the largest simulation of missile interceptions ever held by the air force, The Jerusalem Post reported. The exercise will involve all the air force’s missile [...]
Here’s Stanley Kurtz, writing at the Corner: Although it’s too soon to fully understand what they mean, there are important developments in Egypt today in the run-up to this fall’s election. First, a major coalition of parties has formed that includes not only the Muslim Brotherhood, but two key liberal parties, Wafd and Ghad. The [...]
Here’s an item I’m still trying to get my head round: Hebrew University has just awarded a research prize to a graduate student’s essay in which she claims that Israeli soldiers are “racists for not raping Arab women.” Have a look.
Because I’ve been away on vacation since the middle of last week, and am somewhat out of touch, I missed some very bad news out of Pakistan: the disappearance of the outstanding Asia Times Pakistani bureau chief, Syed Saleem Shahzad. It is now revealed to be murder, by agents unknown. NightWatch’s John McCreary comments: Pakistan: [...]
For tonight, four foreign-affairs items: First: A transcript of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Second: When Vladimir Putin had to step aside in 2008 to honor Russia’s term-limit laws, he selected his chief of staff, Dmitry Medvedev, to keep his seat warm. Now Mr. Putin, eligible to run again in 2012, wants it back — [...]
If you missed it: here’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, explaining reality yesterday after his conversation with the President.
Given the tone of President Obama’s Middle East speech yesterday, I expect it will be a very lively sit-down with Benjamin Netanyahu today. Awaiting reports. There was a lot to comment on (e.g. the speech’s thematic Bush-era neoconservatism, the call for “1967″ borders, the lack of any mention whatsoever of either Islam or Saudi Arabia, [...]
I meant to post this link from STRATFOR a week or so ago, when it first landed in my inbox (but better late than never): a short, sharp summary of the strategic relationship between the US and Pakistan. Here.
Ah, the Arab Spring — that sweet season, so long overdue, in which secular democracy began at last to bloom in the Muslim nations of the Middle East, ending a long dark winter of tyranny, tribalism and theocratic oppression. Observers here in the West swooned at the sight of all those brave young people, their [...]
Between a drumming gig in the wilds of rural New Jersey yesterday, and Mother’s Day doings today, it’s been one of those busy weekends. So for tonight, an analyst’s report sent our way by the indefatigable JK: Osama bin Laden’s Death: Implications and Considerations. I haven’t had time yet to read it through myself, but [...]
This just in, from my old friend Dave Pauley.
While everyone is concentrating on the details of the death of Osama bin Laden, and on what his extinction will mean for the War on Terror, the more interesting question is what will happen in Pakistan. Don’t be surprised if all hell breaks loose. Our relationship with Pakistan is excruciatingly difficult. As a “secular democracy”, [...]
April 29, 2011 – 12:09 pm
In the latest New Yorker there’s an article by Ryan Lizza called “Leading from Behind”, which presents the President’s recent foreign-policy tactics as a way to do things without exposing ourselves to charges of unilateralist swagger. In a recent blog entry, Lizza explains: …at the heart of the idea of leading from behind is the [...]
April 27, 2011 – 10:31 pm
In the wake of the latest massacre of US personnel by our Muslim “allies”, here is a response from Diana West. We’ve lost our minds, and as a result the best among us are losing their lives.
Muammar Qaddafi has sent a letter to President Obama. Here it is: Our son, Excellency, President Obama U.S.A We have been hurt more morally that physically because of what had happened against us in both deeds and words by you. Despite all this you will always remain our son whatever happened. We still pray that [...]
Andrew McCarthy, who has been on a tear lately, posted a very strong article today about the sniveling response by General David Petraeus and NATO ambassador Sedwill to the massacre of UN staff by a raging mob in Afghanistan. Read it here. And then read it again. What a nation of spineless, cringing quake-buttocks we [...]
Our surreal war in Libya has everybody talking. Here’s Mark Steyn: According to the New York Times, “Members of the NATO alliance have sternly warned the rebels in Libya not to attack civilians as they push against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.” We dropped bombs on Qaddafi’s crowd for attacking civilians, and we’re prepared [...]
Over at NRO Andrew McCarthy comments on the amazing hypocrisy of the US government — particularly Sens. Lieberman, Kerry, and McCain — regarding Col. Qaddafi. I of course make no brief for Libya’s grotesque and brutal tyrant, but like him or not we had a deal, and our fickleness toward him — before their transmogrification [...]
On Wednesday’s Today show, Matt Lauer interviewed Michele Bachmann. He is clearly of the opinion that our joining Libya’s civil war on behalf of the rebels was the right thing to do; she disagrees. In the course of their brief conversation came the following exchange: BACHMANN: …We don’t know how much al Qaeda is involved [...]
It looks like there’s going to be a little sectarian “disaggregation” happening in the Gulf States following that little Saudi/Iran Sunni/Shia proxy dust-up in Bahrain. Story here. In Yemen, it seems Saleh is on the way out. Meanwhile, it now appears that NATO either will or will not be taking over the Libya operation, and [...]
March 24, 2011 – 12:16 pm
Here’s a long and sobering article by Adam Garfinkle about our incoherent campaign in Libya. Well worth your time.
David Brooks, with whom I agree sporadically, published a pretty good item about multilateralism in today’s Times. Throughout history strong nations, ruled by confident men, reckoned their interests, and having weighed them, acted. No longer. As a modern Western democracy, America — despite having achieved in recent decades a supremacy of power without historical precedent [...]
March 21, 2011 – 10:37 pm
The Times explains why it supports military intervention in Libya: Libya is a specific case: Muammar el-Qaddafi is erratic, widely reviled, armed with mustard gas and has a history of supporting terrorism. Right, that’s clear enough: he’s a one-off, sui generis, something the like of which we’ve never seen before. …unless I’m forgetting something… No, [...]
March 19, 2011 – 12:09 pm
Well, that cease-fire in Libya might not have involved all that much actual ceasing of fire after all. According to STRATFOR it’s looking more like a race to control Benghazi before the curtain falls. Here. Update: more strategic analysis from George Friedman at STRATFOR, here. Qaddafi would have been wiser to make the cease-fire real, [...]
In the wake of the UN no-fly resolution, Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa has called an immediate cease-fire. This is by far the wisest move for Qaddafi, because with the government’s reconquest of all but Benghazi and eastern Cyrenaica complete, there will now be a consolidation period during which, with far greater resources, Qaddafi’s strength [...]
March 17, 2011 – 11:30 am
Should we intervene in Libya? This is the subject of a fierce debate at National Review. The editors say yes; Andrew McCarthy and Victor Davis Hanson say no. (As do I.) Meanwhile, the havering continues at Foggy Bottom. Regarding the escalating Iran vs. Sunni Arab proxy war in Bahrain, Hillary Clinton said yesterday in Egypt [...]
I’ve mentioned the outstanding strategic security summary NightWatch before (see here for a bio of its author, John McCreary): it is the best of its kind, I think, and certainly the most condensed. Last night’s entry included an analysis of the situation in the Middle East that was so informative I thought I’d reproduce it [...]
As you may have heard, things are changing rapidly in the Middle East. Libya is in flames, Egypt staggers uneasily under military rule, and throughout the region political structures of enduring stability now creak and totter as the ground trembles beneath them. Meanwhile, the U.S. position is shifting too: we are soon to withdraw from [...]
All over the Middle East and the Maghreb, freedom-loving people are shrugging off the yoke of tyranny. Soon the world will be a far better place, as the entire region emerges from a tenebrous netherworld of medieval despotism into the broad, sunlit uplands of representative government and post-Enlightenment liberal society. Everywhere you look, the yearning [...]
February 19, 2011 – 2:16 pm
I’ve been “offline” for a couple of days — avoiding the computer and the news media — but plenty has been happening. If you’ve been waiting for the Muslim Brotherhood to extend its hand in Egypt, wait no longer. The Ikwhan’s éminence grise and foremost theoretician Yusuf Qaradawi — the one who explained to the [...]
February 17, 2011 – 6:02 pm
After a very busy spell we’re traveling tonight, and things might be quiet here for a couple of days (though you never know). But for now, here’s a gruesome item about the Tunisian uprising, with an odd twist: a mysterious blonde sniper.
February 11, 2011 – 12:58 pm
The latest from STRATFOR: Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman delivered the following statement Feb. 11: “In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high [...]
February 10, 2011 – 5:08 pm
“Hosni, old boy, it’s time you made your farewell address to the Egyptian people.” “Why? Where are they going?”
February 3, 2011 – 11:00 am
Amongst all the turmoil in the Mideast, some good news: Lars Hedegaard has been acquitted — on a technicality, but we’ll take it. He published this statement at the website of the International Free Press Society: As my ancient forefathers, the Vikings, would have said: It is always good to fight. It is better to [...]
February 1, 2011 – 5:33 pm
A hat tip to Lawrence Auster for bringing to our attention an excellent article by Caroline Glick on the strange-bedfellow convergence of rose-bespectacled, democracy-exporting conservatives and West-loathing, Howard-Zinn-style leftists in cheering on the uprising in Egypt. Both viewpoints, argues Ms. Glick, are animated by narcissism about the West, though of very different kinds: the democracy-evangelists [...]
February 1, 2011 – 2:33 pm
Now King Abdullah of Jordan, stalling for time while he makes his arrangements, has dismissed his cabinet. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Mubarak no longer has the support of the Egyptian Army, and is presumably wrapping up the last of his official duties: emptying the vaults of the national treasury into a waiting aircraft.
January 31, 2011 – 10:19 am
I’ve just been told that Pakistan has suddenly shut off electronic communications. That would not be a good sign, especially in light of this. For confirmation, so far all I’ve found is this item, which suggests that the issue is more specific — though I’d be inclined to think that’s just smoke. Oh, and there’s [...]
January 29, 2011 – 11:53 pm
Over the transom comes a link to an analysis of the Egyptian situation by foreign-policy analyst Barry Rubin. Some salient excerpts: There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt. …There is no organized moderate group in Egypt. Even the most important past such organization, the Kifaya movement, has already [...]
January 28, 2011 – 10:50 pm
Here’s something I wonder about: what is this mayhem in the Middle East going to do to the world’s economic markets? In particular, if trouble breaks out between Israel and Iran over Israel’s tightening encirclement, and the Strait of Hormuz — through which a very significant portion of the world’s seaborne oil must pass — [...]
January 28, 2011 – 12:13 pm
The pot is aboil all over the Mideast and the Maghreb; today the world’s attention is focused on Egypt, where the long reign of Hosni Mubarak seems to be coming to an end. (Mubarak’s son, his heir apparent, has apparently already fled.) The indispensable NightWatch offers a crisp analysis of why events like these can [...]
January 27, 2011 – 12:46 pm
Multiple sources (here’s one) report that the government in Iraq is moving forward with a deal to buy 18 F-16 fighter jets from the US. What’s not being mentioned (except, as far as I can tell, by the anonymous author of Nightwatch), is that given the extent of Iran’s influence on the al-Maliki government, we [...]
January 25, 2011 – 12:02 pm
In our previous post we republished the statement before his inquisitors of Lars Hedegaard, the president of the International Free Press Society, who stands trial, in a supposedly free nation of northern Europe, for the crime of uttering a forbidden opinion in his own home. You would think that the leading newspapers of the capital [...]
January 24, 2011 – 11:18 pm
The show trial of Lars Hedegaard, the president of the International Free Press Society, took place today in Copenhagen. He stands accused, for remarks he made in a privately taped interview, of violating a Danish law that allows a prosecutor to bring criminal charges against anyone deemed to have spoken words that insult or degrade [...]
January 24, 2011 – 2:35 pm
In the wake of events in Tunisia, things are heating up all over the Mideast and the Maghreb. In particular, events are coming to a head in Lebanon and Yemen. From the indispensable Nightwatch: Yemen: Ripple Effects from Tunisia. On Saturday, thousands of Yemenis demonstrated to demand an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year [...]
January 24, 2011 – 1:12 pm
At last week’s state dinner for Hu Jintao, the pianist Lang Lang, who has a regular gig at the White House these days, provided some entertainment for the guest of honor. What did he play? Learn more here.
January 21, 2011 – 6:08 pm
From Foreign Policy, by way of the indefatigable JK.
January 21, 2011 – 5:42 pm
“One-third of Zimbabwe registered voters are dead” — headline, TheStar.com, January 21
January 19, 2011 – 2:40 pm
Today President Obama welcomes Hu Jintao, the president of China. Mr. Hu will be feted with pomp and circumstance, including the highest honor that official American hospitality can provide: a state dinner at the White House. In other words, today the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize is entertaining, with full state honors, the [...]