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Baghdad Endgame and Afghan Ambiguity
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Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
9/1/2010
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Out of one war, working our way out of the other, was President Obama's message Tuesday night in announcing the withdrawal of the last U.S. combat forces in Iraq. The president claimed credit, legitimately, for having stuck to his campaign promise and timetable to end the American war in Iraq—an unprovoked war that shredded the credibility of American global leadership. His Republican adversaries were reduced to complaining that Obama had opposed his predecessor's gamble on a big troop increase, or "surge," in the war's fifth year —though they modestly decline to claim due credit for having started the war in the first place.
Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Facing the Pakistan Flood
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Morton Abramowitz,
The Century Foundation,
8/23/2010
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Great natural disasters are a defining moment for nations and their friends. They have vast humanitarian and often political consequences, nationally and internationally.The Pakistan flood is another of those sudden earthshaking disasters. The continuing flood, already almost a month old, would have overwhelmed Pakistan no matter whether its President was ineptly slow to fly home to lead the rescue. The world has to help, but the American response—almost always the most important for poorer countries—has been slow, still inadequate, but growing. Read more at Huffington Post.
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Kosovo Status Talks Redux
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Morton Abramowitz,
Koho Ditore,
8/9/2010
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How do you deal with a government, in today’s case Serbia’s, that refuses to accept reality, achieves defeat, and persists in proposals that continue to defy reality? Clearly with difficulty, certainly in a divided Brussels.
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Brazil’s American Challenge
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Jeffrey Laurenti,
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7/12/2010
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The leaders of Brazil and Turkey did not get where they are in politics by being political naïfs, but they learned a hard lesson in international power realities in the United Nations Security Council this month.
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Salvaging Afghanistan
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Morton Abramowitz,
The Century Foundation,
6/25/2010
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The charge of hand-wringing is again heard in the land, mostly from our friends on the Right. Have any doubt about our war in Afghanistan after close to nine years and you are hand-wringing. Eighteen months into the new administration, two strategic reviews, and fifty thousand more troops later—and still, expressing doubt qualifies you for a top hand-wringing citation.
Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Giustozzi on the Taliban
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Michael Wahid Hanna,
The Century Foundation,
6/23/2010
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On a non-McChrystal Afghanistan note, I wanted to draw attention to a newly-released report by Antonio Giustozzi published by The Century Foundation. The report, "Negotiating with the Taliban: Issues and Prospects," gives an updated description of various aspects of the Taliban’s organization with an eye toward how the nature of the group’s structure and control would impact potential negotiations. The report incorporates Giustozzi's most recent fieldwork in Afghanistan in April 2010. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Karzai and the Taliban: Let the Negotiations Begin
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Stephen Schlesinger,
The Century Foundation,
6/15/2010
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On June 12, 2010, The New York Times reported that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has new doubts that the US and its NATO allies can defeat the Taliban. As a consequence, these days he is seeking to negotiate some sort of peace settlement with the insurgents. However, The Times states, certain members of his own administration are resisting this effort and are openly decrying what he is doing. But is that which Karzai is looking for such a dangerous proposition? Isn't this exactly what the Obama Administration is itself desirous of? Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Investment Recouped in Canceled Missiles
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Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
6/11/2010
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President Obama's conservative critics have carped about his Russia "reset," his moves toward nuclear build-down, his hesitant opening to Iran, and the supposedly insipid sanctions he squeezed out of the Security Council on Iran's nuclear program this week. They sneered at his Nobel Peace Prize last fall, saying it was an award for rhetoric since he had produced no results. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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Ain't Gonna Make War No More
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Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
6/11/2010
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Seventy years ago today—June 10, 1940—some of my older relatives in Rome recall, they and their fellow schoolchildren were shepherded into the vast Piazza Venezia to fill the crowd cheering Benito Mussolini's hypnotic announcement that Italy was now at war against "the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the west." The war-intoxicated crowd, shouting "Guerra, guerra!" like the chorus in Bellini's Norma, would all too soon drink the bitter dregs of what they demanded. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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Battling Nuclear Inertia Goes Beyond Sanctions
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Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
6/9/2010
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"If I had known it was going to be this popular, I would have done this a long time ago," President John F. Kennedy is said to have joked with aides when enthusiastic audiences cheered his mentions of the partial nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.
Fast forward fifty years, however, and Barack Obama gets scant acknowledgment from a cynical capital and indifferent press for tightening the noose on nuclear weapons and nuclear dangers. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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