Council on Foreign Relations

...Yet longtime observers of the delicate partnership say events in 2008—like the June air strike and Pakistan's February elections—have increased tensions and strained the alliance. "One could say it's on a downward trajectory," says Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistani journalist and author of Crossed Swords, a history of the Pakistani military. "However, it's not irreconcilable differences in my view. This is something that can be resolved … bearing in mind the talks should come directly from the U.S. to Pakistan—not publicly,… more

Flynt Leverett, who was a counterterrorism analyst on the Policy Planning Council in Colin Powell’s State Department, and senior director for Middle East affairs from 2002 to 2003 on the National Security Council, says the United States’ standing in the Middle East has fallen sharply because of the perception in the region that the United States is now “an occupier.” He says this started after the first Gulf War when U.S. forces were based in Saudi Arabia, and persists because… more

In an Oct. 31 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke approvingly of Ethical Realism -- the new book by New America's Anatol Lieven and former Heritage Foundation scholar John Hulsman. An excerpt of Clinton's speech follows:

At our best, Americans have always lived in a creative tension between idealism and realism; between our clear-eyed insistence on seeing the world as it actually is and our deeply held desire to remake the world as… more