Quote of the Day: Congress Edition (Updated)
The quote of the day comes from an interview with David Kilcullen, an Australian anthropologist and advisor to Gen. Petraeus: Our biggest problem during the surge was a hostile American Congress. Couldn't that be said of the financial crisis as well? It reminds me of Sam Clemens's quip: It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 22, 2009 09:03
Obama Ends Major Combat Operations in Iraq
[caption id="attachment_32336" align="alignright" width="300" caption="President Barack Obama (R) walks with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (L) from the Oval Office to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House February 27, 2009 in Washington, DC. President Obama is traveling to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to announce his plans for eventual removal of troops from Iraq. (Getty Images)"][/caption] Given ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 28, 2009 08:43
Obama Retakes Lead
Chuck Todd and company note that Barack Obama has rebounded in the polls and that we're now "about where the race was before the conventions." The reason why Obama’s up: women. According to the latest New York Times/CBS survey, Obama is ahead overall by five points (48%-43%); a week ago after the GOP convention, CBS had McCain up two points overall ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 18, 2008 11:44
Maliki Cracks Down on the Sons of Iraq
Writing for the L.A. Times, Shawn Brimley and Colin Kahl have a disturbing report about the ongoing crackdown of Iraq's Sunni population by the Maliki government.Much of Iraq's dramatic security progress can be traced to a series of decisions made by Sunni tribal leaders in late 2006 to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq and cooperate with American forces in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 27, 2008 01:21
Did the Surge Work? Who Can Say?
Ezra Klein and his summer intern have compiled ten expert responses to the question "How Important Was the Surge?" Not surprisingly, those from Center for American Progress answered "Not all that important" whereas Michael O'Hanlon and others who supported the Surge to begin with though it was "undoubtedly very important." Or, as Marc Danziger puts it, There's a fairly wide ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 29, 2008 07:13
McCain Mocks ‘Audacity of Hopelessness’ in Iraq
John McCain said today that the Middle East would be in far worse shape had we succumbed to Barack Obama's "audacity of hopelessness." Republican presidential candidate John McCain, ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have plunged into war had U.S. troops been withdrawn as his rival ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 25, 2008 17:14
Terrorists Are Like Cockroaches
Commenting on a recentish NYT report on foreign fighters flooding into Pakistan to support al Qaeda and Taliban militants, Thomas Barnett observes, Spray one apartment and the bugs move over to the next. Wherever there’s the least resistance or the most opportunity, you find them clustered. The Anbar awakening ruins al Qaeda’s long-term chances in Iraq, and so the clustering refocuses ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 24, 2008 08:26
OTB Radio – Tonight at 7 Eastern
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler, Dodd Harris, and (tentatively) Alex Knapp will be joining me tonight to talk about recent events in the news. Likely topics: Obama's overseas trip The Couric interviews with Obama and McCain Is the Surge working? Are we winning? Can we ever win? Please join ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 23, 2008 16:30
McCain: Effects Precede Causes in Iraq
Here's an interesting Q&A from Katie Couric's interview with John McCain. Kate Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 23, 2008 12:31
Achieving Victory in Afghanistan
In anticipation of Sen. Barack Obama's visit to Afghanistan I thought it might be appropriate to consider the situation there. Both Sens. McCain and Obama have called for achieving victory in Afghanistan. Sen. Obama has characterized the conflict there as “the war we need to win” and has called for …taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 21, 2008 17:36
Iraq War Now Peacekeeping Mission?
Michael J. Totten weighs in on the Iraq War is Over and We Won argument and decides that, while he's "reluctant" to answer that question in the affirmative, "The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. " [Michael] Yon is braver than the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 17, 2008 08:09
McCain and Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan
William Arkin contends that recent political maneuvering has put Barack Obama and President Bush in almost identical positions vis-à-vis Iraq: The Bush administration's potential Iraq withdrawal plan, floated in The New York Times over the weekend, to draw down brigades further before September of this year and to accelerate withdrawals in 2009, has collided with Barack Obama's own 16-month plan, which ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 15, 2008 14:46
Obama’s Surge Purge Emerges, Demonstrates Nerve, Verges on Scourge, Reactions Diverge
Barack Obama has taken things off his campaign site that might be used by opponents to embarrass him, James Gordon Meek reports in the NY Daily News under the headline "Obama Purges Web Critique of Surge." Why, it's our Outrage of the Day! Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 15, 2008 12:27
Obama’s Plan For Iraq
Barack Obama takes to the op-ed pages of the NYT to present his new plan for Iraq which is conveniently his old plan for Iraq. He sees Nuri al-Maliki's proposal for a a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq as "an enormous opportunity." Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 14, 2008 09:19
Al Qaeda in Iraq Defeated?
Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 6, 2008 07:56
