Mullah Omar, the de-facto leader of the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, is calling for a surge of fighters in Afghanistan to counter our planned surge: Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani journalist, wrote in Canada’s Globe and Mail on Saturday that Mullah Omar’s letter “to the commanders of...

Imagine that, after World War II, instead of investing in the Marshall Plan in Europe, we allowed Europe to slide into decay. Eight years after the end of the war, unemployment across Europe is 40%. There are reports of literal starvation in the countryside. There are pockets of prosperity — t...

Votevets’ Brandon Friedman knows that the questions we need to answer about Afghanistan are out there. What are the goals of US involvement? What is the main objective of the military strategy? What would “victoryâ€� look like, and what allows US troops to leave? How will we pay for an escal...

(originally posted at MWC News) “I have some good news and some bad news,� the sergeant in the joke tells his men. “The good news is that you are going to change your dirty socks. The bad news is that you are going to exchange them among yourselves.� I am not the only person who is reminded ...

Following up on Thurston’s answer to Brandon Friedman’s debunking of five myths that progressives ostensibly hold regarding the escalation in Afghanistan, I’d like to dilate one of Thurston’s principal observations: “he [Friedman] doesn’t quote a single anti-escal...

Scholars talk about an “Arab Cold War” from roughly 1954 to 1967 between Nasser’s Egypt and Saudi Arabia, especially once King Faisal took over in the early 1960s. Defeat for Nasser in 1967 actually brought him closer to Faisal, though Sadat’s decision to forge a separate pea...

Reuters: The first deployment of a planned United States surge of up to 30,000 troops, has moved into bases in two key provinces of east Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday. The U.S. has pledged between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops for Afghanistan, where violence has increased markedly sin...

At her confirmation hearing, in response to John Kerry’s statement that parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam are unavoidable, Hillary Clinton took the long, historical road to prescribe humility in our future Afghanistan policies: Sitting here today, when I think about my tripds to Afghan...

Earlier this month I wrote about divided opinion on Gaza within the Jewish community, as exemplified by the rise of J Street. Here’s Ezra Klein in Ha’Aretz pushing a similar idea: Traditionally, Israel’s American advocates have prized a dogmatic species of support, best encapsulate...

(originally published at MWC News) (Editor’s Note from Jason Rosenbaum: I think this is probably the most accurate reason as to why Israel started a war with Gaza last week. It’s ironic, too, because before this war, Barak and Livni represented the more moderate wing of the Israeli polit...