Category: General

Former CIA Counterterrorism official Paul Pillar has an important op-ed in today’s Washington Post that questions whether terrorists really need “safe havens” after all.

I am up this morning in Pittsburgh speaking in a forum sponsored by the RAND Corporation and the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh about the political context of next week’s G-20 meeting. We’ve just gone through one morning panel, and I will be in the next segment that starts at 9:45 am.

(photo courtesy of Atlantic Council of the United States) Barack Obama has invited Colin Powell in to see him today — and knowing General Powell’s respect for the Office of the President, whether occupied by Barack Obama or George W.

Charlie Cook, one of the best political handicappers in the country, sees the Democratic camp diverging in three directions — loyal Obamites, Liberal purists, and skeptics.

Politico‘s Ben Smith got the scoop on a letter today drafted and signed by a number of realist-tilting scholars and commentators raising many of the key questions and concerns about growing US presence in Afghanistan that were Obama’s concerns about Iraq.

Big conference on America’s debt mess today. I’m moderating a big chunk. Here is the rundown of a very interesting symposium thinking through the challenges of private debt overhang and the public debt debate. The bursting of the housing and credit bubbles has left the United States with a huge debt overhang.

President Obama has missed yet another chance to pressure Congress to end the self-inflicted damage of a “unilateral embargo” against Cuba and to take American foreign policy writ large in a new, more constructive direction.

I just finished reading the Independent Committee on Turkey’s report on Turkey’s EU accession negotiations. The Committee consists of European elder statesman who support Turkey’s membership and are alarmed by the “vicious circle” of events that is jeopardizing Turkey’s EU prospects.

In today’s New York Times, Ronald Asmus provides a useful summary of the German Marshall Fund’s recently released Transatlantic Trends report. The report indicates that support for American foreign policy has risen dramatically in Western Europe, but not in Eastern Europe or Turkey.

Does anyone even remember that this was supposed to be about Osama bin Laden? How did we get into a full on war with the Taliban and thus in the middle of an Afghan Civil War in which neither side likes us much? The Obama administration has made a major mistake in allowing a sleight-of-hand…