NewsTrust - Foreign Policy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Kerry: Afghan handoff may take 4-5 years

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

USA Today - Nov. 18 (Interview) - In the past year Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has become a more prominent force in Washington. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry offers a critical voice at a time when the United States is engaged in two wars abroad while facing myriad challenges on the international front. The Vietnam War veteran, who was his party's presidential candidate in 2004, recently has warned that though the cost of failure in Afghanistan would be substantial, Afghans must do the heavy lifting. He is pushing an initiative on climate change, tying it directly to national security. Kerry discussed these and other issues Tuesday with USA TODAY's editorial board. The following Q&A is adapted from that session and edited for length and clarity.

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Copenhagen summit: Change we can't yet believe in

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Nov. 16 (Editorial) - Confirming yesterday what had already been apparent for some months, Barack Obama and other leaders yesterday said that time had run out to secure a legally binding climate deal at Copenhagen. They said the 22 remaining days were just too few in number to secure binding emissions targets and overcome the divisions between the developed and developing world. This could be viewed as a realistic assessment. Mr Obama said that we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The British government's view is also optimistic. As long as political targets and outline commitments are agreed at Copenhagen, why should it matter that a few more months are taken to thrash out the details, if the end result is a package that is workable and enforceable? Rather a good package later than a weak package now. After all, the same thing happened to the Montreal protocol on CFCs, which took a year to harden up but remains the best of its kind.

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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Op-Ed Columnist: World Out of Balance

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 15 (Opinion) - But let’s hope that when the cameras aren’t rolling Mr. Obama and his hosts engage in some frank talk about currency policy. For the problem of international trade imbalances is about to get substantially worse. And there’s a potentially ugly confrontation looming unless China mends its ways.

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Why Hillary Clinton babies Indonesia and bullies Pakistan

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By John Hughes - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Indonesia earlier this year, she said: "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia." When she visited Pakistan recently, she was polite but much more critical in her words, basically accusing some government officials of sheltering Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

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The Generals' Revolt

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:07:22 -0800

Rolling Stone - Nov. 04 -

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Afghanistan: Now what?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - Nov. 03 (Editorial) - In the first round of balloting, Afghan President Hamid Karzai received 1 million "ghost votes" from people who simply didn't exist. When those were eliminated, he lacked the requisite plurality and was pressed by his Western backers into agreeing to a runoff -- only to see his challenger drop out in anticipation of further fraud. Faced with a one-man race, the Independent Election Commission on Monday canceled the second round and returned Karzai to power for a second five-year term.

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A world of change in 287 days

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - Nov. 02 (Opinion) - The columnist evaluates the successes and shortcomings of President Obama's first 287 days in office. Obama could have been quicker to close Guantanamo, tougher on Wall Street, more willing to investigate possible transgressions by the Bush administration, and bolder in pursuing health care reform. But his achievements have included preventing a nationwide depression, renouncing torture, working diligently to close Guantanamo, keeping the Iraq withdrawal on schedule, nominating the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court, touting cooperation with the Muslim world, embracing a multi-lateralist foreign policy, accepting climate change, and investing in green jobs and education. Most important, he has brought America to the brink of legislation to make health insurance an entitlement for all Americans.

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Trade Could Be Key For Afghanistan And Entire Region

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Radio Free Europe - By S. Frederick Starr - Oct. 30 (Opinion) - Both U.S. General Stanley McChrystal and President Barack Obama have affirmed the need for "economic" and "governance" measures in Afghanistan. They're right, of course. Without them Washington's stated goals -- to destroy Al-Qaeda and cripple the Taliban -- remain purely negative and not compelling to most Afghans, to the countries neighboring Afghanistan, or even to its NATO allies.

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Iraq on the Edge

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Joost R. Hiltermann - Oct. 29 (Opinion) - For the occasional visitor such as myself, various methods exist to measure America's standing in Iraq, Iraqi suspicions and aspirations, and progress in the transfer of power, but none prove as illuminating as the checkpoints into and throughout Baghdad's Green Zone, that diminishing symbol of the Bush administration's ambitions.

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Iran's nuclear programme: Deadline missed

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 24 (Editorial) - Iran has again failed to do deadlines. It has been evading them in the seven years since an opposition group first outed its extensive covert nuclear programme, despite five UN Security Council resolutions that have told it to halt its suspect nuclear work. After talks that ended in Vienna on October 21st, Iran and the three countries trying to strike a side-deal over new fuel for a Tehran-based nuclear reactor were told by Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing chief of the UN’s nuclear guardian, that they had just two days to take his draft agreement or leave it.

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Which Way for Hamas?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Nicolas Pelham, Max Rodenbeck - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Hamas's officials struggle to sound upbeat. The burly interior minister, Fathi Hamad, whose predecessor was killed by an Israeli bomb, defiantly shuns security precautions at his makeshift office in Gaza City's main police station. "Claims that we are trying to establish an Islamic state are false," says the minister, who says his preference would be pursuing a degree in media studies. "Hamas is not the Taliban. It is not al-Qaeda. It is an enlightened, moderate Islamic movement."

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Where's Dick?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel, Nancy Youssef - Oct. 19 (Opinion) - We're in the midst of the biggest political crisis in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. Pakistan has launched a major offensive into the South Waziristan tribal area, a move that was preceded by a string of murderous terrorist attacks against Pakistani security forces. U.S.-Pakistani relations almost went thermonuclear over a U.S. aid bill that Pakistani military saw as a hammer against it. Where then is Richard C. Holbrooke, the president's Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan?

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From Defeat, Lessons in Victory

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gordon M. Goldstein - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - The decisions made by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam are instructive lessons for President Obama in Afghanistan.

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Binyam Mohamed: full text of David Miliband's statement - Telegraph

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Telegraph - By David Miliband - Oct. 17 (Statement) - ''The Government is deeply disappointed by the judgment handed down today by the High Court which concludes that a summary of US intelligence material should be put into the public domain against their wishes. We will be appealing in the strongest possible terms.

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How the Afghanistan Presidential Election Was Rigged

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Peter W. Galbraith - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - No one will ever know how Afghans voted in their country's presidential elections on Aug. 20, 2009. Seven weeks after the polling, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is still trying to separate fraudulent tallies from ballots. In some provinces, many more votes were counted than were cast. E.U. election monitors characterize 1.5 million votes as suspect, which would include up to one-third of the votes cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Once fraud occurs on the scale of what took place in Afghanistan, it is impossible to untangle.

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The Afghanistan Impasse

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Ahmed Rashid - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - Pakistan's safe havens for the Afghan Taliban have been to a large extent responsible for their revival and growing dominance across Afghanistan and for the rising death toll among NATO forces. But the Taliban were not the major cause of the political crisis that enveloped Afghanistan after the August 20 presidential elections.

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Counterintuitive counterinsurgency

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Richard Fontaine, John Nagl - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - As the Obama administration debates whether to stick with the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan, opponents point to that nation's flawed presidential election as a reason why this approach cannot work. Counterinsurgency is premised, they argue, on the presence of a legitimate national government that can win allegiance from local populations. Given credible allegations of rampant abuse in Afghanistan's August election, President Hamid Karzai's newly illegitimate government cannot play this role. As a result, the United States has little choice but to change strategies.

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Heckuva Job, Barack

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ross Douthat - Oct. 12 (Opinion) - It was obvious President Obama wishes that the Nobel committee hadn’t put him in this spot. But he should have been brave enough to tell it no.

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In the Afghan War, Aim for the Middle

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Richard N. Haass - Oct. 11 (Opinion) - The one issue that should be at the core of the United States' Afghan strategy is Pakistan. It is there, not Afghanistan, where the United States has vital national interests. These stem from Pakistan's dozens of nuclear weapons, the presence on its soil of the world's most dangerous terrorists and the potential for a clash with India that could escalate to a nuclear confrontation.

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Containing a Nuclear Iran

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Fareed Zakaria - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - It is time to clarify the debate over Iran and its nuclear program. It's easy to criticize the current course adopted by the United States and its allies, to huff and puff about Iranian mendacity, to point out that Russia and China won't agree to tougher measures against Tehran, and to detail the leaks in the sanctions already in place. But what, then, should the United States do? The critics are eager to denounce the administration from the sidelines for being weak but rarely detail what they would do to be "tough." Would they attack Iran today? If not, then what should we do? It is time to put up or shut up on Iran.

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What are the odds that Obama's Iran talks will succeed?

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Peter Feaver - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - How should we measure success in the talks with Iran that begin today? I propose the following sliding scale.

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Keeping Iran honest

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Scott Ritter - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the "Qom declaration".

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Tehran's worst fear is a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Anne Applebaum - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Very few security experts point out that there is another option. What do Iran's rulers truly fear, after all? I'll wager it's not sanctions, and it might not be a bombing raid. An economic boycott can be circumvented, after all, with the help of Venezuela or maybe the Russian mafia, and an attack on Iranian soil might help the regime once again consolidate power. By contrast, a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign must be a truly terrifying prospect. What if we therefore told the Iranian regime that its insistence on pursuing nuclear weapons leaves us with no choice other than to increase funding for dissident exile groups, to smuggle money into the country, to bombard the airwaves with anti-regime television programming, and above all to publicize widely the myriad crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

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Iran tests the world’s collective will

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Gideon Rachman - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Barack Obama normally likes to talk about hope. Last week at the United Nations he had the audacity to fear. The US president conjured up a vision of a dystopian world: “Extremists sowing terror ... Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations.” That is our collective future, according to Mr Obama, unless the world’s leaders co-operate to find “global solutions to global problems”.

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