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From Iraq to Afghanistan, U.S. Foreign Wars Not Going According to Plan
by William Pfaff
American Foreign Policy and Military Intervention
(c) Kevin Kreneck
On the same day, in
American commanders complain that the
A foreign diplomat in
The Iraqi prime minister is playing the nationalist card, a dangerous one to play when the Sunnis also have sectarian revindications, and a lot of grievances.
This is not the way this war was supposed to end. For younger readers: Six years ago the American intervention was supposed to end in a multi-party democratic government, an ally of
Move to another front:
Here there was also supposed to be a straightforward job to do: drive the Taliban out of
What actually is happening is unsurprising.
The Taliban have also been for
The growing opinion in
In
However the U.S. acted on a nonsensical theory about the world "going Communist" if the U.S. didn't win, just as today the U.S. has an even more nonsensical theory about radical Islam conquering Muslim Asia and all of
Unlike the Viet Cong, the Taliban are not a disciplined force acting under some government's orders, and have neither the intention nor means to attack anybody outside
In that respect it's a war of ideas, which
American Military Intervention Today Means a Less Secure Tomorrow
William Pfaff
A once-fashionable subject in America's think tanks was futurology. It worked by projecting what were thought to be plausible developments in the situation of a given subject that would lead to a series of 'branching points,' expected eventually to lead the analyst to unforeseen conclusions about what could happen.
However, unexpected developments actually were fairly uncommon, since nearly everyone started with a bias toward one or another desirable outcome.
Obama, Solana Mean Business About Two-State Solution
by William Pfaff
The Israeli press reports with alarm that the United States has threatened to reduce by $1 billion the guarantee the U.S. Treasury customarily provides for Israel state borrowings, which assure them the best commercial terms. This is evidence that the Obama government is serious about halting Israel's colonization of the Palestinian territories -- and about imposing, rather than merely inviting, a two-state Middle East solution.
America's Homeland Security Surplus
William Pfaff
Janet Napolitano, Barack Obama's secretary of Homeland Security gave a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, meant to convince American civil libertarians and security specialists that the country can be kept safe, and neighborly as well.
Berlusconi's Indiscretions, Sarkozy's Rep - Why Sometimes Pays to Be Like Gordon Brown
by William Pfaff
Flamboyance of the Latin kind gets you into the newspapers, but for bad reasons as well as good. Nicolas Sarkozy of France is not a man noted for charm but for his unchecked energies and the restless activity. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is another matter entirely. He is a success in politics apparently because the majority of Italians like him. Indeed, sometimes pays to be a nondescript politician like Gordon Brown of Britain.
From Iraq to Afghanistan, U.S. Foreign Wars Not Going According to Plan
(c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.