It’s Time to Let Go of America’s 18-year Afghan War

by Aaron David Miller, Steven Simon, and Richard Sokolsky Reports that US and Taliban negotiators have reached a tentative framework for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan have set the foreign policy establishment’s hair on fire. A former US ambassador described… Continue Reading

Our Hardliners Are Still Helping Iran’s Hardliners

by Paul R. Pillar The unrelenting urge among American politicians to keep punishing Iran—or more precisely, to be seen supporting steps with that objective—continues to work against sensible statecraft and U.S. interests in multiple respects. One of those respects concerns… Continue Reading

The Exceptional But Fragile American Democracy

by Paul R. Pillar Efforts to export American-style liberal democracy to foreign lands have bumped up against the fact that the successful working of such democracy depends on habits and attitudes that are rarer than most Americans think and that… Continue Reading