U.S. Airstrike Kills Qasem Suleimani, Others
This killing of Suleimani has the potential to be a very big moment in 40+ years of American-Iranian tensions
Tagged: Iraq
Casus Contendentes (Now With Update)
Burt Likko wonders whether, despite the unmitigated human rights awfulness that is the nascent would-be state forming in northern Iraq, swallowing our idealism and adopting a strategy of economic containment wouldn’t be a more practical alternative to making war against ISIS.
UPDATE: Reaction to President Obama’s address of September 10.
A Vast Silence
The New York Times ran a story that took Burt Likko’s breath away in outrage when he read it last night. But apparently, he’s pretty much the only one.
Blaming the Child for the Abuse
We tortured and imprisoned you as a child soldier. It’s time to pay up.
On Syria, the War on Terror, and the Loss of Souls
As war with Syria approaches, no one cares. This, argues Tod Kelly, is the ultimate cost of the War on Terror.
Dignity, Empathy, and the Iraq War
So Digby’s reading these Iraq War mea culpas — and thank god for that because I tried before quickly determining I can’t stands no more: David Ignatius wrote his Iraq mea culpa today and...
A Theoretical Case for a Romney Presidency From a Foreign Policy PoV.
Over at Blinded Trials the esteemed Dr. Saunders has a post up about how W. Mitt Romney, much like John McCain before him, has managed to alienate potential voters with his mendacity and pandering to the...
Conflicting Accounts of Obama’s Foreign Policy Achievements
Andrew Sullivan wants Obamaites to more aggressively tout the President’s foreign policy achievements: “I think the Obamaites need to be more aggressive in foreign policy arguments. Obama ended one war in Iraq, dispatched Osama bin Laden...
Some, Many, and Most
While flipping through yesterday’s New York Times I hit upon this piece which gave me pause. For a number of reasons it didn’t sit right with me, and I was happy to see Glen...
The Bush Revival
Inspired by this incredibly silly post, I thought I’d recommend an old but prescient article from Ross Douthat on the all-but-inevitable recovery of Bush’s foreign policy reputation. It is staggering to think that a...
Tunisia and Iraq
The analytical gymnastics Jennifer Rubin is forced to perform here to defend the invasion of Iraq are pretty impressive. If the Tunisian revolution spurs reform in neighboring countries, her line of reasoning goes, Iraq’s...
Wars of plunder?
In an uncharacteristically silly post, Erik asserts that all wars are either defensive or driven by “plunder.” He also suggests that the United States’ invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were somehow motivated by a...
A few data points for Jonah Goldberg
Media criticism is often the last refuge of lazy bloggers, so I’ve tried manfully to avoid chiming in on the debate over “epistemic closure” and the conservative movement. But I can resist no longer;...
The Surge – it worked!
A pretty fair-minded assessment from Abu Muqawama: If you want to argue that getting involved in Iraq in the first place was a stupid decision, fine. I agree with you. But trying to argue...
Processolatry
We destroyed these people’s lives, and we propose to buy off their suffering with congressional campaigns? Jesus wept.
Of Elections and Insurgencies
Stephen Lee Myers in the New York Times: Defying a sustained barrage of mortars and rockets in Baghdad and other cities, Iraqis went to the polls in strength on Sunday to choose a new...
Party like it’s 2004
Victor Davis Hanson won’t give up the fight: The president apparently does not realize that in Iraq too there was a coalition, that the Iraq War was approved by both houses of Congress on...
Shooting at Ft. Hood Army Base
The numbers of dead and wounded are different according to the source, but it looks like American soldiers opened fire on other soldiers at a Texas Army base. According to the New York Times:
Because, as we all know, Military Spending Doesn’t Count
New York Times: The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,...
The Course(s) of Iraq
Sully writes the following in the wake of the recent horrific bombing in Iraq: But the surge failed in its core task: to create an environment in which the three major sects in Iraq...
