The Next Intervention - Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan, Washington Post
Throughout its history, America has frequently used force on behalf of principles and tangible interests, and that is not likely to change. Despite the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, America remains the world's dominant military power, spends half a trillion dollars a year on defense and faces no peer strong enough to deter it if it chooses to act. Between 1989 and 2001, Americans intervened with significant military force on eight occasions -- once every 18 months. This interventionism has been bipartisan -- four interventions were launched by Republican administrations, four by Democratic administrations. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the situations in which an American president may have to use force have only grown, whether it is to respond to terrorist threats, to curb weapons proliferation, to prevent genocide or other human rights violations, or to respond to more traditional forms of aggression.
Perceptions of Iraq War Are Starting to Shift - Michael Barone, Real Clear Politics
It's not often that an opinion article shakes up Washington and changes the way a major issue is viewed. But that happened last week, when The New York Times printed an opinion article by Brookings Institution analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack on the progress of the surge strategy in Iraq. Yes, progress. O'Hanlon and Pollack supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- Pollack even wrote a book urging the overthrow of Saddam Hussein -- but they have sharply criticized military operations there in the ensuing years.
Antiwar Profiteering? - Ernest Istook, Washington Times
Some of the politicians who propose withdrawing our troops from Iraq have an ulterior motive. They want to stop spending money on the military so they can start spending it on social programs. If they succeed, an army of social workers may prove the only force in the world capable of beating America's military. Funding that "army" is a revival of the "peace dividend" doctrine that brought us a hollowed-out military during the Clinton administration.
Democrats `Unable to Conceive Victory' - Cal Thomas, Miami Herald
Most Democrats seem so invested in defeat in Iraq that they apparently have no ''Plan B,'' which would be success. So cynical have our politics become that a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democratic leaders are ''not willing to concede there are positive things to point to'' in Iraq. And House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn said that a favorable report from Gen. David Petraeus could lead 47 moderate to conservative ''Blue Dog'' Democrats to oppose a withdrawal timetable, making it virtually impossible for the liberal leadership to pass withdrawal legislation. ''(It would be) a real problem for us,'' said Clyburn.
Iraqi Legislators Can't Take the Heat - Cynthia Tucker, Baltimore Sun
It's not as though Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his colleagues would have accomplished much even if parliament had stayed in session. Some bloc of Shiites or Sunnis is always stalking out. The prime minister himself is both duplicitous and indecisive. Mr. Maliki is not so much interested in a democratic republic that protects the interests of minority Sunnis as he is in a Shiite-run government that punishes Sunnis. And he often blusters about his government's alleged strength and sovereignty - U.S. military forces can leave "any time they want," he declared last month - before he hurriedly reverses himself.
Intrigues of Iraq - Amir Taheri, New York Post
With the surge in its third month, even the most critical observers agree that, while violence still rages daily, the security situation in Baghdad and the two most turbulent provinces, Diyala and Anbar, has improved. There has, however, been no corresponding progress on the Iraqi political scene. Although The National Assembly (parliament) has dealt with no more than a quarter of the legislative agenda it set for itself, its members voted themselves a long holiday.
Duelling U.S. and Iraqi Timetables - Toronto Star editorial
In a land as ancient and complex as Iraq, change takes time. And compromise does not come easy when it can be interpreted as fatal weakness. So it is undoubtedly true, as President George Bush and his advisers are fond of saying, that the political reconciliation clock in Baghdad is running behind the expectations clock in Washington. U.S. officials are now arguing for more time for the "surge" to work.
A Censorship Sheikdown? – Mark Steyn, Washington Times
How will we lose the war against "radical Islam"? Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St. Peter's on the same Tuesday morning. The war will be lost incrementally because we are unable to reverse the ongoing radicalization of Muslim populations in South Asia, Indonesia, the Balkans, Western Europe and, yes, North America.
Domestic Terror in Iran – Amir Taheri, Wall Street Journal
The latest wave of executions is the biggest Iran has suffered in the same time span since 1984, when thousands of opposition prisoners were shot on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini. Not all executions take place in public. In the provinces of Kurdistan and Khuzestan, where ethnic Kurdish and Arab minorities are demanding greater rights, several activists have been put to death in secret, their families informed only days after the event
Mr. Bush, Here’s a Plan for Darfur – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times (subscription required)
Frustrated by the genocide he is tolerating in Darfur, President Bush has suggested to aides on occasion that maybe the U.S. should just send troops there. He alluded to that when he told a woman in Tennessee who asked him about Darfur: “The threshold question was: If there is a problem, why don’t you just go take care of it?” Mr. Bush was talked out of the idea by Condi Rice, who told him that the U.S. just couldn’t start another war in a Muslim country. So, as Mr. Bush told the questioner: “I made the decision not to send U.S. troops unilaterally into Darfur.”
The Rush for a Legacy – Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
With less than 18 months remaining in her tenure and that of President Bush, Rice has turned her famously disciplined focus toward delivering legacy achievements. But her aims are utterly different from those with which Bush began his second term -- such as the "freedom agenda" he restated in Prague. Democracy promotion in the Middle East is out, replaced by a belated but intense effort to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Even more strikingly, the "regime change" strategy that once marked Bush administration policy toward North Korea has been dropped in favor of an all-out effort to negotiate a rapprochement with dictator Kim Jong Il.
The Goebbels Model? - Nat Hentoff, Washington Times
It is increasingly evident that those protesting China's hosting the 2008 Olympics are not limited to appalled critics of Beijing's deep involvement in the genocide in Darfur and now Chad. Supporters of essential free-press rights everywhere such as the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists make the crucial point that China imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world. Dictatorships, after all, shun sunlight.
Obama's Sword - Mona Charen, Washington Times
Within the last several weeks, Democratic presidential aspirant Barack Obama has announced he would meet with America's enemies and attack America's friends. Those interested in a dramatic departure from Bush-Cheney need look no further. Asked whether he would — without preconditions — meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, the Illinois senator declared he would. He added, "I think it's a disgrace that we have not spoken to them."
'Rock Star' Obama in Harmony With U.S. Allies - Albert Hunt, Bloomberg
Negative sentiments have deepened significantly in the Bush years. By huge majorities, predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia and Malaysia, have a negative view of the U.S. So do most people in Latin America and Western Europe. The neo-conservatives who drove the Bush foreign policy were contemptuous of what they regarded as former President Bill Clinton's obsession with being popular in other countries. They also admirably pushed a pro-democracy agenda.
Frank Exchange with Malaysia - Rowan Callick, The Australian
Malaysia provides a rare example of an economically successful and democratic Muslim country. Now, four years into the prime ministership of his less flamboyant but also less dogmatic successor Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's government-funded Institute of Strategic & International Studies has felt sufficiently confident in the restored relationship to invite Australian business people, academics, think-tank drivers, religious leaders and others to a couple of days of a frank exchange of views about each other, and the Asia-Pacific region.
FISA and Bush Derangement Syndrome – Washington Times editorial
The sorry spectacle that took place on Capitol Hill in recent days was an outbreak of Bush Derangement Syndrome (Charles Krauthammer's term) that has threatened to cripple our ability to intercept international terrorist telephone calls. In the end, coalitions of responsible Republicans in the House and Senate were able to pass legislation that met the minimum recommendations of Director of National Intelligence Adm. Mike McConnell: modernizing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to ensure that our intelligence agencies can intercept jihadist telephone calls abroad without having to get judicial approval. But it only happened after an ugly scorched-earth campaign by congressional Democrats who suggested that Adm. McConnell and the Bush administration were negotiating in bad faith and that the changes they wanted would undermine Americans' constitutional rights. Both assertions are false.
Warrantless Surrender – Washington Post editorial
Administration officials, backed up by their Republican enablers in Congress, argued that they were being dangerously hamstrung in their ability to collect foreign-to-foreign communications by suspected terrorists that happen to transit through the United States. The problem is that while no serious person objects to intercepting foreign-to-foreign communications, what the administration sought -- and what it managed to obtain -- allows much more than foreign-to-foreign contacts. The government will now be free to intercept any communications believed to be from outside the United States (including from Americans overseas) that involve "foreign intelligence" -- not just terrorism.
FISA Makeover Fissures – Donald Lambro, Washington Times
One conclusion of investigation into the September 2001 terrorist attacks was that U.S. intelligence agencies had failed to connect the dots about the unfolding plot against us. Nearly six years later, our lawmakers are still fighting over whether a key intelligence tool needed to connect those dots should be updated to track terrorist communications networking and help prevent the next attack against the United States.
Finders Keepers in the Arctic? – Robert Miller, Los Angeles Times
A Russian expedition reached the North Pole on Wednesday and sent two men in submarines 2.65 miles below the Arctic Ocean to explore the seabed -- and, not incidentally, to plant a titanium capsule containing the red, white and blue Russian flag. The explorers want bragging rights for a journey they compare to "taking the first step on the moon," but they are also pressing Russia's claim to a vast swath of the Arctic Ocean.
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