Foreign Policy
Should the CIA Turn Against Pakistan's Spies?
Richard Holbrooke in Asia
While sitting in Istanbul‘s Attaturk International Airport waiting for a flight, I was stunned to hear a BBC announcer report that my colleague and friend U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had just died. I knew that he had been rushed to George Washington University Hospital with a torn aorta. But, despite the seriousness of his condition, it was still unimaginable that he would not recover. After all, had “Holbrooke,” as his friends and colleagues always referred to him, not always prevailed? Had there ever been a challenge too daunting for him? READ MORE >>
What Poets Can Teach Us About the War in Afghanistan
The editor of a journal recently asked me to write an article addressing this question: “What will Afghanistan look like in 2020?” I declined, saying that my contribution would consist of two words: “Who knows?” I should have added: “Who cares?” The answer, of course, in that everyone in Washington seems to care. Indeed, Washington obsesses about Afghanistan—hence, the never-ending stream of assessments and reassessments, study group reports and op-eds to which we are treated, each possessing a shelf life of approximately 15 minutes. READ MORE >>
If Only Holbrooke Had Been Given a Free Hand in Afghanistan
One can just imagine what the Wikileaks records of Richard Holbrooke’s diplomacy would have looked like. His salty, roustabout’s slinging of abuse when needed; his explosive pugnacity while negotiating in person and his relentlessly unsentimental drive towards a result—none of it would have looked pretty on paper. Yet he pulled off the impossible by imposing stability on the Balkans with the Dayton Accords. READ MORE >>
Wikileaks and the Cyberwars to Come
America's Facile, Self-Congratulatory Response to Wikileaks
Nothing in the Wikileaks saga has been more typically American than the search for a good-news angle on the whole depressing story. Merely keeping a stiff upper lip is not enough, it seems. We need to assure ourselves that what looks like a disaster is really a victory. READ MORE >>
A Response to Glenn Greenwald
When I filed my TNR.com piece called “Everything Is Data, but Data Isn’t Everything,” I didn’t know that Wikileaks, Le Monde, El Pais, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times had entered into what two AP reporters were to call “an extraordinary collaboration between some of the world’s most respected media outlets and Wikileaks.” Jamey Keaten and Brett J. READ MORE >>
China Attacks the Nobel Peace Prize: “They’re Clowns”
On Tuesday, just days before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Beijing embarrassed itself in front of an international audience. “I would like to say to those at the Nobel Committee, they are orchestrating an anti-China farce by themselves,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. “We are not changing because of interference by a few clowns and we will not change our path.” READ MORE >>
Why Did FIFA Choose Russia?
It seems eccentric, to say the least, that the FIFA selection committee chose Russia as the World Cup’s home in 2018, and all the more so as it meant overlooking perfectly serviceable countries such as Britain. (They also chose Qatar over the U.S. for 2022, but that's another counterintuitive story altogether.) READ MORE >>
