The New Republic

In early 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to President George W. Bush from the heart. The war in Afghanistan had been an astonishing display of U.S. strength. Instead of the bloody quagmire many predicted, CIA paramilitary agents, Special Forces, and U.S. air power had teamed with Northern Alliance guerrillas to run the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of their strongholds. As a new interim government took power in Kabul, Cheney was telling Bush that the next phase in the war on terrorism was toppling Saddam Hussein. READ MORE >>

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In the hushed halls of the Hart Senate Office Building last Thursday afternoon, there was a bustle of activity outside room H-219. A group of senators streamed through tinted-glass doors, leading to a soundproof steel vault in which the Senate Intelligence Committee holds its classified hearings. An academic-looking man in thin-rimmed glasses arrived with an aide in a white Navy uniform. READ MORE >>

Over the past several weeks, a parade of foreign policy experts, touting a pile of recently published “blue-ribbon” think-tank reports, has taken to the airwaves in full cry against the Bush administration’s policy toward North Korea. Or, more precisely, the absence of a Bush administration policy toward North Korea. According to these critics, the feuds between the Defense and State Departments that hobble so much else have virtually paralyzed U.S. policy toward the Hermit Kingdom. READ MORE >>

In the last couple of weeks, Americans have learned something about our troops in Iraq: They hate it there. They are hot, tired, and surrounded by a population they don’t understand who occasionally tries to kill them. The left isn’t demanding that the United States “come home,” because, while it abhors war, it likes nation-building. But the homesick men and women of the military may prove a far more compelling lobby—and the more the public focuses on their plight, the more pressure the United States will feel to cut and run before it has planted the seeds of liberal government in Iraq. READ MORE >>

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Joe Lieberman is sitting in the second pew at the Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's the morning after the senator revived his lifeless campaign with a strong performance at the Democratic debate two hours west in Columbia, and about 200 worshipers—mostly black, many on their feet—are singing and clapping to the gospel music of the J.A. Darby Mass Choir, which is belting out a jazzy version of the Christian hymn "Oh, How I Love Jesus." READ MORE >>

Last week, an Iraqi exile named Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi strode into Baghdad and declared himself mayor, meeting with local sheiks and promising them potable drinking water and electricity. “With your help, we can manage our country by ourselves,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying. Barbara Bodine, the former U.S. ambassador to Yemen who has been tapped for administrative responsibility over Iraq’s capital, was forced to tell reporters that the United States did not recognize Zubaidi’s authority. READ MORE >>

I have just returned from southern Iraq. It was the first time I had set foot in that part of my country since 1966. Back then, I used to accompany my father, dean of the School of Architecture in the University of Baghdad’s College of Engineering, while he led groups of his students on tours to study the architecture of the south. Two years later, a coup brought the Baath Party to power, eventually leading to the rule of Saddam Hussein. READ MORE >>