All Commentaries
Iran Hawks Find New Supporters Against the NIE
Many of us remember the Iraqi exile groups whose tall tales the Administration used to justify the invasion of their country in 2003. Fewer people are aware that similar groups from other Middle Eastern countries frequent the halls of Congress and editorial board rooms carrying their frightening ghost-written books with guidance from pro-war think tanks. The organized challenge against the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) summary on Iran this month included such a group, which for years cried wolf about Iran.
The Surge: Illusion & Reality
What Doug Feith Taught Me About Decision Making
I’ll be the first to admit it. I am pretty lousy decision maker. Even the most mundane decisions sometimes become tortuous.
Balis Business-As-Usual Mandate
Following two weeks of climate talks in Bali that brought together nearly 190 countries and more than 10,000 delegates, observers and activists, it looks like there’s very little to show for negotiations that were less about urgent climate action than business as usual.
Poor Iraq: First Mongols and Now Americans
As the saying goes, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The Bush administration has embraced this adage in Iraq, which has suffered
one of the worst humanitarian crises to strike the Middle East since the Mongols
sacked Baghdad.
Islam and Pakistan
From its Cold War role as a bulwark against the irreligious, evil empire of the Soviet Union to its status as a major non-NATO ally in the post-9/11 war on terrorism, Pakistan has flaunted its various religious credentials. Vacillating from jihad to enlightened moderation, Pakistan’s ruling civil and military elite has unscrupulously employed religion as a means to gain domestic and international legitimacy.
Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran
The unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran ceased pursuing a program of nuclear weapons in 2003, has dealt a severe blow to the Bush-Cheney agenda of forcible regime change in Iran. For several months, the rhetoric emerging from the White House escalated to the point that many observers predicted Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.
Pushback to Unilateralism: the China-India-Russia Alliance
As U.S. unilateralism has asserted the role of the United States as the sole global superpower, the rest of the world is exploring a variety of ways of pushing back. One is the creation of several new regional security consortiums which are independent of the U.S. One of the most important is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security alliance led by Russia and China, with several non-voting members including India. Its rising economic, political and military profile this year can serve as a useful lens through which to view this geopolitical pushback. It is based on promoting a multipolar world, distributing power along multiple poles in the international system, such as the United States, Europe, Asia-Eurasia and the Middle East,1 while also promoting the multilateralism of international cooperation.2 In recent years, Russia and China have stepped up their advocacy for a multipolar-multilateral alternative.
John Edwards’ Foreign Policy
A sizable number of progressive activists, celebrities and unions who, for various reasons, are unwilling to support the underfunded long-shot bid of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are backing the presidential campaign of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards as their favorite among the top-tier candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Indeed, the charismatic populist has staked out positions on important domestic policy issues, particularly addressing economic justice, that are more progressive than any serious contender for the nomination of either party in many years.
Learning to Live with Pluralism
The resilience of religion in public life in the early 21st century has surprised many secular observers who once confidently assumed that the overall thrust of history was toward secularization. The world, they expected, would follow the trajectory of post-Enlightenment Europe, which experienced steep declines in church attendance and the development of a decidedly lay public sphere. Much of the world, however, stubbornly refuses to fit that narrative. This applies certainly to the Islamic world, but even to the United States, where church attendance is one of the strongest predictors of voting behavior. Rather than fit different societies into a one-size-fits-all secularization narrative, we have to pay attention to the particularities.