The Iraqi Parliament has passed a law allowing for the establishment of federal regions in Iraq. This isn’t the sort of thing that makes good sound bites or titillating headlines. Its real effect on the course of history in Iraq … Continue reading →
Bob Woodward has done an about-face from the relatively Bush-approving stance of his last two books on the administration. The present one, State of Denial, is by all accounts a description of a quarrelsome and conflict-ridden administration, with Rumsfeld, Cheney, … Continue reading →
Today there was a car bomb attack in Iraq characterized as the largest terrorist act there since May, when the new government took office. Over sixty people were killed in the blast, which occurred in a street market located in … Continue reading →
Both before and after we invaded Iraq, one of our problems was lack of good intelligence from inside that country. Many of our advisors were Iraqi expatriates whose information was out-of-date and not necessarily reliable, and Iraq itself seemed opaque … Continue reading →
I haven’t written about Haditha yet. I know that we don’t yet know what happened there, or why. So all we can do is speculate, and to me the speculation seems rather obvious: if innocent civilians were murdered by the … Continue reading →
In Part I I tried to advance some arguments as to why the Iraq war is so hated. Here are a few more. Neither that post nor this one is meant to be exhaustive. One of the main justifications for … Continue reading →
The war in Iraq is especially hated. Of course, all wars are hated by most thoughtful people, since they involve bloodshed and suffering. And havoc. It’s not for nothing that Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: “Cry havoc, and let loose … Continue reading →
I don’t often do roundups and links. But lately, there have been so many important stories that I haven’t had time to cover–and that others have covered so very thoroughly–that I thought I’d handle them this way rather than ignore … Continue reading →
He’s done it again; here’s a must-read post from Wretchard of Belmont Club. It was sparked by an article by Robert Kaplan appearing in the Atlantic (subscribers only), entitled “The Coming Normalcy.” This, in turn, was a sequel to an … Continue reading →
When events such as the mosque bombing and the subsequent unrest and violence in Iraq happen, I turn–as I’ve done so many times before–to Iraq the Model for some inside information. I’ve written this previous post about Iraq the Model, … Continue reading →
Yesterday’s post about the mosque bombing and the general topic of making political decisions drew forth a host of interesting comments. I gave a very brief response here, but I think a few more words are in order because the … Continue reading →
I meant to call attention to this post of Callimachus’s when I first read it some days ago. But better late than never. It’s entitled, “Why We Fight,” and is the usual thoughtful and wide-ranging rumination on history and present … Continue reading →