From the Archive: Robert Draper’s new book, Do Not Ask What Good We Do, describes Newt Gingrich and other Republicans plotting on Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day how to sink his presidency. But that plot has been obvious for years in GOP obstruction of Obama’s…
Tag: Barack Obama
Declaring War on ‘Political Islamism’
Exclusive: If Mitt Romney wins in November, the neocons have made clear they will reclaim full control of U.S. foreign policy and reverse President Obama’s few halting steps toward peace. The neocons even want to move past George W. Bush’s…
How US Hubris Baited Afghan Trap
Exclusive: Despite what Official Washington thinks it knows, the real error on Afghan policy after the Soviets left in 1989 was not the abrupt cutoff of U.S. aid but nearly the opposite, continued CIA support for the Islamist mujahedeen and…
The Secret in the US-Afghan Deal
The secret of President Obama’s strategic agreement with Afghan President Karzai is that U.S. Special Forces will continue raids to kill Taliban leaders who won’t make peace — even as the new accord is sold to the American public as…
Finally, an Afghan End Game
The long U.S. war in Afghanistan is finally being wound down by an agreement that removes U.S. combat troops in 2 1/2 years but lets a small contingent of Special Forces remain. The larger reality is that the war has gone on way…
Not Explaining the Why of Terrorism
Exclusive: President Obama signed a U.S.-Afghan strategic agreement on May 1, committing U.S. combat forces to withdraw by the end of 2014 while leaving behind U.S. counter-terrorism teams for another decade. But Obama and his aides still duck a full debate over the causes of terrorism, writes…
Finishing a Job: Obama Gets Osama
From the Archive: One year ago, President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, ending a near-decade-long manhunt. Amid U.S. celebrations, it was largely forgotten that the delay in getting the terrorist leader resulted from blunders by George W. Bush and his neocon advisers,…
Some Israelis Resist Netanyahu
Exclusive: In the past week, several senior Israelis have criticized the extremism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward Iran and the Palestinians, but his American supporters continue to escalate their denunciations of anyone who won’t march in lockstep, as Robert…
About the bin Laden Anniversary
This week, there will be plenty of retrospectives on the U.S. Special Forces raid into Pakistan a year ago to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But the focus on that one attack and one man may obscure the larger threat from…
How Obama Recycled a Lie about Iran
Exclusive: President Obama has joined much of Official Washington in mistranslating a comment by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad into the provocative phrase, “wiping Israel off the map.” Obama’s falsehood recalls President George W. Bush’s bogus claim about Iraq seeking uranium in…