Roguely Stated

It’s been nearly two years since Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans and other southeastern areas. Hurricane Dean is approaching the coast of Mexico and is predicted to sweep into Texas. If Dean doesn’t turn into “the next big one,” some other hurricane will. When that happens, how much will response agencies have learned from Katrina? Continue Reading »

Missing the forest for the trees
We need more discussion about Iraq at a grand strategic level, rather than at a purely operational or tactical level. As many uniformed officers have said, we have tactical successes on a daily basis. If General Petraeus’ surge yields results, as it well may, we will have achieved a major victory at an operational level, too. Hopefully, it will give us the breathing room we need to have a full, higher-level discussion about how we should deal with Iraq over years, not days. Already, there’s a dialogue brewing about a policy of containment in Iraq: Continue Reading »

There’s a time in dead-heat sports matches when a coach has to decide whether to push for the win, focusing all his attention and his players’ energy on the next few minutes, or to run down the clock and start investing in an overtime victory. That decision is hard enough, but perhaps the greatest challenge comes once the run-down-the-clock strategy is in place: letting the players execute while you look past the buzzer to what comes next. We’re getting to that point on Iraq. Continue Reading »

Independence Day brings two key elements of the American conscience into sharp relief.

First, the history of establishing independence and a new form of government, based truly on the people’s power. It is, in a sense, a celebration not just of independence, but also of the rule of law, of a government held in check by divided branches and separated powers. The Fourth is a celebration of the Constitution and of every part of the country’s history that it laid out — including the President’s power of commutation.

Second, security. Especially after last week’s UK terror plots, the issue of security was front and center as American families came together to celebrate the Fourth. It’s the same security that was recently damaged by — again, the President’s power of commutation.

After the White House announced President Bush’s decision to commute “Scooter” Libby’s sentence, Democratic critics came out with strong attacks, as expected. The good news is that Democrats seem to be getting better at message discipline, jointly assailing the Bush administration for being corrupt and for acting “above the law” — good charges that often hit hard against the secrecy-obsessed and croney-prone administration. With a few days passed and the attacks easing off, the question is whether, by focusing attacks on a key weakness of the Bush Administration, the Democrats missed an even greater opportunity: to overtake a real Republican stronghold, national security. Continue Reading »

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), minority leader on the Foreign Relations Committee, reversed his long-time support of the Iraq war earlier this week, advocating for a major shift in U.S. strategy and a draw-down of troops as soon as possible. David Kilcullen, Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor for the Multinational Force in Iraq, returned from nearly six weeks on the ground there with a message of optimism about the surge, grounded in operational realities. Their two messages are toe-to-toe on some points, hand-in-hand on others. Both are worth a close read. (Lugar | Kilcullen) Continue Reading »

In a new New Yorker article, long-time investigative journalist Seymour Hersh delves deep into the months before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in the media. He probes a report by General Taguba, who was responsible for investigating the role of military police in Abu Ghraib. As the war in Iraq drags on and other military actions seem to appear on the not-so-distant horizon, Hersh’s article raises a host of critical questions. Continue Reading »

First, Vietnam. Then, Iraq. Next, Iran?

If you have an exit strategy for getting out of this pattern, now’s your time to shine. Continue Reading »

A roundup of the day’s national and international security news: Pentagon plans for long-term in Iraq; Bush for independent Kosovo; Karzai survives assassination attempt; Pope and Bush talk Iraq; GAO to study Pentagon; Iran threatens U.S. Mideast bases; Iraqis fighting Al-Qaeda. Continue Reading »

A roundup of the day’s national and international security news: Engagement with China; diplomacy with Iran; Lebanon’s siege in Palestine; and, the hunt for WMD in Iraq. Continue Reading »