(Photo credit: Army.mil’s photostream) Max Boot, Frederick Kagan, and Kimberly Kagan argue in today’s New York Times that we cannot afford to “lose” Afghanistan and suggest a number of tactical changes to our operations there. Their argument contains three major flaws.
(Photo Credit: United States State Department) Meri Lugo is a research intern at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.
Katherine Tiedemann is a program associate at the New America Foundation. Last night I attended an event sponsored by Young Professionals in Foreign Policy featuring Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (apologies for the poor picture quality–the iPhone camera is still woefully lacking).
This is a guest post by Amjad Atallah, co-director of the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. Charles (Chas) Freeman withdrew his candidacy yesterday for the post of chairman of the National Intelligence Council. This development sets up a worrying trend that will need to be reversed at the highest levels of government.
(Photo credit: Eric Molly’s photostream) President Obama’s decision to reopen negotiations with the Syrians is about much more than bilateral relations between the two countries. Syria’s cooperation is integral to initiating game-changing policies toward Iran and to achieving progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track.
(Photo Credit: Chand Khan, Agence France Presse–Getty Images) Katherine Tiedemann is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation.
The Washington Post ran a feature yesterday that asked a number of foreign policy experts to offer their first impressions of President Obama’s speech at Camp Lejuene. I found many of the responses interesting, but was particularly struck by Andrew Bacevich’s comments.
Douglas Rediker is Director of the New America Foundation/Global Strategic Finance Initiative. Rediker is a capital markets expert who has been focused on the emergence of “state capitalism” as a key feature of the new international economic order. He has now become a regular contributor to The Washington Note.
Win Monroe is a research intern at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. Yesterday, Krygystan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed a bill ordering the closure of the US air base in Manas.
It appears increasingly likely that the Kurdish cause will be the latest American casualty in Iraq. Kurdistan, an autonomous region in Iraq’s northeast, is governed by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Whether Kurdistan remains viable as an autonomous region depends on whether it can incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital.