The Cold War was like two winos who’d dragged themselves from the gutter and stopped drinking. But, hedging their bets on sobriety, they carried around pints of Everclear 190 proof grain alcohol.
Nuclear Weapons Are a Gift From God
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Focal Points Blog
Hello, Has Anybody Seen Our Idea of Governance in Afghanistan?
Turning Afghanistan over to the Taliban may actually be a win-win situation for the United States.
When Leaders Sleep Do They Dream of Peace?
So I’m walking to work today and I suddenly start thinking about Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli PM. Sharon went into a coma back on January 4, 2006. To my knowledge, the man is still alive. Correct?
What an interesting story here. What if Sharon came back to us and wanted to work on a Middle East solution?
Reader Challenge: Is the Middle-East Peace Process an Artifact of Another Age?
Does the quest for Israel-Palestine pece still accord with U.S. interests? Is it still the key to Middle-East stability?
Shahzad: A Pretext, Not a Man
The competing assertions about Times Square-bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad’s links relationship with Pakistani Taliban reflects a broader debate both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and Pakistan over how to handle Taliban elements in Waziristan province.
A Final Survey of Nuclear Posture Perspectives
Once and for all, is the Obama administration nuclear posture review slumped or standing up straight? Here’s a sample of commentators whose insights — from fresh to just plain strange — jumped out at us. (The new START treaty is remarked upon as well.)
Okinawa and Obama’s Base-Based Addiction
Japanese PM Hatoyama’s modified base relocation plan looks like a lose, lose, lose proposition for Okinawa, Japan, and President Obama.
Reader Challenge: Is Jerusalem ‘crumbling under the weight of its own idealization’?
In a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal last week, Eli Wiesel described Jerusalem as “the world’s Jewish spiritual capital” and “the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.” The Sheikh Jarrah [Just Jerusalem] activists who, unlike Wiesel, actually live in Jerusalem, say: “We cannot recognize our city in the sentimental abstraction you call by its name.” They describe the city they call home as “crumbling under the weight of its own idealization.” . . . writes Paul Woodward at War in Context…Jerusalem is crumbling under the weight of its own idealization.
Nuclear Modernization Making a Mockery of Disarmament
Last summer, the Economist published a letter from hawkish Arizona Senator John Kyl (currently neck deep in the springtime of his state’s immigrant shame). Cole Harvey of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reports that Kyl wrote: “Every nuclear weapons power— with the exception of the US — is currently modernising its nuclear weapons and weapons delivery systems…Yet the US continues to permit its nuclear forces to atrophy and decline.”
Reader Challenge: Can Moderates Make Charges That Suicide Bombers Are Infidels Stick?
Reports Christian Caryl at Foreign Policy, Pakistani newspapers recently learned that jihadists have “just added a new target to one of their death lists. His name is Tahir ul-Qadri, and he’s no government official. He’s one of Pakistan’s leading Islamic scholars, an authority on the Quran and Islamic religious law.”