by Paul R. Pillar It probably was inevitable, as a matter of how Washington as a whole approaches such things these days, that President Obama would make his decision about keeping 5,500 troops in Afghanistan into 2017. There is too… Continue Reading
by John Feffer Nixon lied. Surely this is not a shocker. But what’s interesting about the latest revelation concerning Nixon and Vietnam is that the most duplicitous president in U.S. history actually knew that the U.S. air war in Southeast… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar The Russian military intervention to shore up the Assad regime in Syria, coupled with the previously begun U.S.-led military intervention in the same country—amid uncertainty about U.S. war aims and a reluctance to part with the… Continue Reading
by Thomas W. Lippman Not since the royal power struggle of the 1950s have the rivalries and conflicts within the ruling family of Saudi Arabia burst into public view as they have in the past two weeks. The British newspaper The… Continue Reading
by James Spencer “Tell me how this ends,” then-Major General Petraeus reportedly asked during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was a surprising question, since none other than former Secretary of Defense and then-Vice President Dick Cheney had foreseen the likely… Continue Reading