Syria Intervention: Too Much, or Not Enough?

Those arguing for US intervention in Syria have always had a hard time being consistent, but Jackson Diehl's piece in the Washington Post on Sunday is all over the place. He claims that Obama's decision in 2009 to re-open the US Embassy in Syria (it had been closed by...

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Undercounting Civilian Deaths in Drone Strikes

A new study from Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute finds that the number of Pakistani civilians killed in drone strikes are "significantly and consistently underestimated" by tracking organizations which are trying to take the place of government estimates...

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We’re Not Leaving Afghanistan

Politicians technically use the same language as us, but many of their words have very different meanings. In last week's vice presidential debates, for example, Joe Biden said, “We are leaving [Afghanistan]. We are leaving in 2014, period. Period." Micah Zenko at the...

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War on Iran – Failing on Its Own Terms

David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy revives an issue I thought might at least temporarily dissipate after the official "dialing back" of Israeli leaders' pressure for a US war on Iran. He says the Obama administration has discussed a US-Israeli "surgical strike" on...

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Deploying Troops to Jordan: Asking For It?

With the news that more than 150 US forces have been deployed to Jordan, in part to "be positioned" as a contingent force "should the turmoil in Syria expand into a wider conflict," it's important to note the risk involved. As the New York Times reported: American...

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Romney, Candidate for Power

Micah Zenko at the Council on Foreign Relations lists Mitt Romney's apparent foreign policy principles vis-a-vis his foreign policy speech from yesterday. In part, Zenko's impressions are compatible with what I wrote about Romney's speech: that it suggested little to...

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