Foreign Affairs
Respected defense analyst and journalist Bill Gertz writes: China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will…
Articles here and here have raised fresh questions about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s behavior in the oil-for-food program controversy. The first article notes: Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are “urgently reviewing” new information that suggests U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more than he revealed about a contract that was…
Most analysis (like here or here) trying to set up Uzbekistan as a realist-versus-idealist problem in foreign policy is missing an important point. No matter how the US reacts to the Andijan massacre, Uzbekistan’s current government is likely to replace us with the Chinese as an alliance partner. So tolerating their brutal actions makes no…
The Wall Street Journal published an adaptation from a recent speech by Fouad Ajami about his four week trip to various spots around the Middle East. “George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region,” a shrewd Kuwaiti merchant who knows the way of his world said to me… To venture into the Arab…
President George W. Bush made two important appearances this week in Riga, Latvia and in Tbilisi, Georgia. At each stop, he spoke about freedom and democracy: Latvia Georgia Here is how a Wall Street Journal editorial described the visits to Latvia and Georgia: …two…moments from the trip better capture its real import. The first was…
Today’s news reports: Jordanian rebel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — Iraq’s most wanted fugitive — recently eluded capture by American troops, but left behind a treasure trove of information, a senior military official told ABC News. On Feb. 20, the alleged terror mastermind was heading to a secret meeting in Ramadi, just west of Fallujah, where…
Scrappleface says it better than I’ve been saying it…“Clearly Mr. Bolton is a blunt man, with a focus on results and little patience for fools and swindlers. How could he ever function at the U.N.?” Mr. Voinovich added that [I am] “not beholden to any special interest group — like the Republican party or the…
From today’s New York Times, on the John Bolton nominationMr. Chafee told CNN that the committee’s Republicans might consider whether to recommend that the nomination be withdrawn.Senator Chafee, you need to tell your constituents exactly why you believe this. The article hints that the sole reason is “bad temperament”Mr. Chafee and 2 others have now…
An article published today states: New documents found in the files of the former East German intelligence services confirm the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II was ordered by the Soviet KGB and assigned to Bulgarian agents… The Corriere della Sera said that the documents found by the German government indicated that the…
Every once in a while it is worth stopping and taking a look back. I recently reread some of President George W. Bush’s major speeches on the War on Terror, dating back to shortly after September 11, 2001. I thought it might be helpful to have many of them accessible in one posting: 1. September…
