Iraq

Juan Cole and McGuire Gibson will speak on the U.S. government and its faltering efforts to mobilize sufficient expertise while planning the incursion into Iraq and its reconstruction. Cole and McGuire have a deep knowledge of Iraq and the surrounding region and have advised the U.S. or the U.N. in various capacities.

Lunch will be provided.

Ruprecht Polenz, a senior CDU Member of the Bundestag, is one of the most powerful German voices on his country's foreign policy and national security policy issues. He has been focused on what is real, what is not, and what policy contours America and Europe should take towards Iran for some time. In addition, his Foreign Affairs Committee determines, with the government and the full Bundestag, whether or not German forces will be deployed, so… more

The rate of suicide attacks in the Iraqi insurgency has surpassed the number of suicide operations by all previous insurgent groups combined, including those by Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and Hamas in Israel. Many of the suicide bombers are foreign volunteers--they come from neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Syria, and from as far away as North Africa and Europe. What motivates these foreign fighters to make this journey of death? Dr. Mohammed Hafez, author… more

In 1999, a mysterious Iraqi applied for political asylum in Munich. The young chemical engineer offered compelling testimony of Saddam Hussein’s secret program to build weapons of mass destruction. He claimed that the dictator had constructed germ factories on trucks, creating a deadly hell on wheels. His German hosts passed along his account to their CIA counterparts, but denied CIA agents access to their star informant. The Americans dubbed him with an unforgettable code name: Curveball. After September 11,… more

Clausewitz is the name, and war is my game. You'll forgive a little levity from a dead Prussian, won't you?

I, Carl von Clausewitz, wrote the book on war. Literally. It's called Vom Kriege ("On War"), and I'm proud to say it's been required reading at military academies for two centuries. So when Herr Pinkerton told me he was writing a column about American military strategy in the Middle East -- I told him to take the day off.

Ironically,… more

There is a surreal quality to many of the foreign policy arguments being put forward in the 2008 presidential campaign, particularly among Republican presidential hopefuls. The Bush Administration’s fiasco in Iraq is a transformative event that calls for a fundamental re-thinking of US security strategy. The policies of "preventive" war, forward basing of US troops aimed at intimidating designated adversaries and unbridled support for missile defense and new nuclear weapons should all be cast aside in search of a new… more

On Nov. 7, 2007, Dr. Flynt Leverett, Senior Fellow and Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation, testified before the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs,

In his opening remarks, Leverett declared:

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bush Administration’s refusal to pursue comprehensive, strategic engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran is profoundly misguided, and is imposing real costs on American interests in the Middle East and the… more

A gathering threat from Iraq, a safe haven for Al Qaeda; stockpiles of chemical weapons in the hands of forces deeply hostile to the United States; Iraqi terrorist groups capable of attacking American allies and even, perhaps, the homeland itself. That was the utterly false portrait of Iraq that the Bush administration painted in constructing a rationale to invade the country in March 2003. Four and a half years later, in a hideous twist of irony, that description is a… more

Omar bin Laden, the fourth son of the Al Qaeda leader, cuts a striking figure. In one photo, he stares out from beneath an Adidas baseball cap, his beard closely trimmed -- an entirely different look from his father’s seventh-century aesthetic. He wears jeans and sits next to his much older wife, a pale-faced British woman with pig tails, whom he divorced a mere five months into their marriage. While his father would not approve of his lifestyle choices, few… more

From the CNN Transcript of "Your World Today":

The Washington Post says U.S. generals in Iraq are considering issuing a "declaration of victory" over al Qaeda in Iraq. They cite a number of promising statistics, including a reduction in U.S. casualties -- 22 so far this month -- a sharp drop in suicide bombings from a high of more than 60 in January to less than half that number in July; a reduction in the flow of fighters into Iraq… more