Our Iraqi Allies

Recently, security in the Najaf area was handed over formally from the Coalition forces to a unit of the new Iraqi army (NYT, December 20). Let me quote from the description of the ceremonies:
“The general public did not attend. Much of the audience was made up of powerful tribal leaders, who sat beneath a sign [...]

Mideast and American Thinking

Today’s NY Times brings an Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman entitled “Mideast Rules to Live By”. He prefaces his remarks by saying that he had hoped so much for a good outcome in Iraq that he forgot what he had learned by covering Lebanon’s civil war in the past. My experience reinforces what Friedman has to [...]

Defects in the More Troops Strategy

It appears today that the strategy of bringing in several thousand troops, and especially of adding 20,000 Americans to the forces in Baghdad for a three-month “surge” to retake the city, is now favored to win out in the strategy battles in Washington after the publication of the Iraq Study Group Report (that rejected this [...]

An Iran – Iraq Project for an International University

A recent article has discussed the attempt to raise money throughout Asia for an international university in Northern India that would recapture the glory of learning in that area in medieval times. The university is conceptualized as a rebirth of Nalanda University, one of the leading universities in the world during its medieval existence from [...]

The Iraq Study Group: Partial Evaluation

For the last several days many of those concerned with Iraq have been commenting on the Study Group report with its 79 recommendations. It is a short report, easy to read on-line. It is moderate, middle of the road, and yet immediately produced bitter criticisms, particularly from the right. Bush doesn’t like it; the Iraqi [...]

Iraq Alternatives Revisited

The confining of military alternatives to more, the same, or less troops — or to shifting force objectives from combat to training — is both defeatist and overly simplistic. As I suggested in a recent blog (November 9), the institutionalization of something like the CAP system employed by the Marines in Vietnam might be helpful [...]