Saudi Arabia’s No Nonsense Views on American Decline in the Middle East

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I shared some views on Saudi Arabia’s steely-eyed, unsentimental assessment of the deteriorating situation in Iraq and the consequences of America’s decline in the region with this Radio Free Europe journalist, Abubakar Siddique.

<em>Guest Post from Mark Goldberg:</em> The Daalder-Kagan Op-Ed

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Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias (the duo that brought you The Incompetence Dodge) each make excellent points about today’s Ivo Daalder/Robert Kagan op-ed, which argues that the Security Council should no longer have the final say on authorizing armed intervention.

Leaving You Until Friday with Oakley & Annie

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I’m about to head off with journalist Jim Lobe and another friend to commune with big mountains and tough hiking trails and plan strategy in the Cascades. I’m not used to this stuff and think I’ll look a bit like Oakley and Annie above — though they aren’t on this trip.

Tension Inside AEI: A Neocon Heart vs. Corporate Head

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Jim Lobe brilliantly chronicles a key point of tension between various AEI stakeholders — on one hand a group of firms who help fund the place and are mostly focused on government deregulation and on the other, those who have helped shape and drive a neoconservative War in Iraq and national security strategy.

Matt Yglesias Deserves Better

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This is a hilarious video interview with super-blogger Matthew Yglesias who just didn’t get the treatment he deserves at YearlyKos. Then I did a video interview talking about my encounter with Peter Beinart over what we’d tell the next President about U.S. foreign policy if we had five minutes.

Wesley Clark to Bush: “Stop Hiding Behind David Petraeus!”

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General Wesley Clark delivered a humdinger of a speech this morning in Chicago at YearlyKos. There’s much to it — and he puts the target for the failure in Iraq not on the military, nor on the Congress, nor other participants in this mess other than President George W. Bush.