Iraq

The long-awaited report by David Petraeus to the US Congress on the war in Iraq has provoked a debate about tactics rather than what is needed: a debate about strategy. The tactics are those of the US troop surge (a weasel word for escalation). Observers agree that the surge has had some effect in reducing violence in parts of Iraq, temporarily if not permanently. But this success, if it is a success, ignores the larger question of US strategy.

The US… more

The emerging narrative from Iraq is threefold, leading us to a further conclusion about the future of American politics. Hint: Watch Gen. David Petraeus.

Any narrative -- the agreed-upon storyline -- is a mixture of truth, fiction and poetry. In politics, narratives make sense of the past, guiding us into the future.

The first piece of the narrative is familiar from all our wars, won or lost: Our warriors did what we asked them to -- and more. The Iraq war, as… more

Under the guise of promoting a "security dialogue" in the Persian Gulf, the Bush Administration has proposed $63 billion in arms transfers to the Middle East over the next ten years. As is so often the case, team Bush seems to prefer to let the weapons do the talking, even when it claims to be engaging in diplomacy. The foundation of the deal is a pledge to sell $20 billion worth of high-tech arms to Saudi Arabia and the other… more

Interview with Nir Rosen on Iraq:

...TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So Nir, we keep hearing reports, though, nonetheless out of Baghdad. People saying that give us time, we are trying to get this government worked out. We are going to make some progress. Do you see any way that can happen?

NIR ROSEN: No. This has been the case for the past would two years at least. There is no hope. There is no government. Neither side is interested… more

Critics of the Iraq war have called it George Bush’s Vietnam. Now, it appears, President Bush himself agrees. In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week, the president sought to increase support for his policy by drawing parallels between the consequences of the US departure from Indochina in the mid-1970s and possible consequences of a US withdrawal from Iraq. In Vietnam, the president stated, "the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose… more

Carl Levin, probably the most influential Senate Democrat on Iraq policy, just returned from a "visit to Iraq." In a joint statement with GOP Sen. John Warner, he pronounced that "the military aspects of President Bush's new strategy in Iraq, as articulated by him on January 10, 2007, appear to have produced some credible and positive results."

While expressing various "concerns," they particularly hailed "the continuing improvement in the ability and willingness of the Iraqi Army to conduct combat… more

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk further about the refugee crisis? Again, lay out the numbers that we’re talking about inside Iraq and outside.

NIR ROSEN: Outside Iraq, we’re approaching three million refugees who have left since 2003. There were, of course, refugees who left before then, due to Saddam and other factors. Inside, I think you have a similar number of internally displaced Iraqis fleeing their homes in mixed areas and going to more homogenous areas. Sunnis from Basra are… more

Where were you on 9/11? All of us remember, and those memories give us thoughts and intuitions about what may come next.

On that Tuesday morning in 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans unexpectedly died. As for the 300 million of us who were mere witnesses, we knew that our lives were nonetheless changed forever. Like those who were alive during Pearl Harbor in 1941, or on the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was obvious that all future… more

The last thing that seven Iraqi policemen at a checkpoint in Ramadi in late July saw was a woman approaching them. Seconds later, she detonated her explosives vest, killing herself and everybody else at the site. Just two weeks earlier in Pakistan, some would-be female suicide bombers were less successful in martyring themselves. When government forces stormed Islamabad’s Red Mosque, several women were among the die-hards hoping to make a stand. "We wanted to carry out suicide attacks ... but… more

The Bush administration’s proposal to send $20 billion worth of arms and $43 billion in military aid to U.S. allies in the Middle East has been promoted by repeating a series of time-worn myths that should have long since been abandoned. With a shooting war in Iraq and a war of words with Iran well under way, the last thing the region needs is a new influx of high tech weaponry.

The suggestions of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary… more