WPR Blog Archive

When it comes to the constant rocket barrage targeting Israeli towns and villages close to the border with Gaza, one thing is for sure: there are no easy options to deal with the problem, and Israel has obviously not had any success so far. As Frida Ghitis describes in her WPR commentary, talking to Hamas is one of the options being debated; at the opposite end of the range is the option of launching a large-scale military operation aimed at rooting out the infrastructure of the militants. A rather telling illustration of the dilemmas involved in the decision-making is the […]

I mentioned yesterday that Turkish withdrawal from Iraqi Kurdistan might be as blurry as what’s actually going on in the Qandil Mountains. Here’s what the Turkish general staff thinks it will look like: The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) will create temporary security bases in northern Iraq after troops wrap up an ongoing ground offensive in the region against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), security sources told Today’s Zaman. The army plans to establish 11 temporary bases south of the border with Iraq to prevent the PKK ever again using this territory to launch attacks on Turkey, after pulling out […]

In comments over at Headline Junky, reader GS flagged this sentence from Sam Brannen’s WPR piece about the Surge: “The United States is now the thread that binds Iraq, and it is clear that a serious unraveling of the situation would occur were this thread suddenly to be pulled away.” GS wondered: If this be the case, we are in a situation from which there is no exit. Does this make McCain right for saying he’d stay there for another hundred years? Does it make Obama wrong for saying we need to remove ourselves ASAP (and who knows what ASAP […]

Eye-opening report from Steve Clemons, who’s travelling in Israel and the West Bank, regarding the “antipathy” felt at high levels of the Israeli government to Condoleeza Rice’s upcoming visit: I’ve been told that she comes with no plan, no ideas, no pressure to move in any direction whatsoever. According to a source very close to Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert, she doesn’t even ask questions about the basic positions on each side so as to understand the “gaps” and then to offer ideas — or even pressure on the Israelis and Palestinians — to close the gaps. Those engaged credibly in […]

Laura Rozen reads the tea leaves and comes up gloomy: Ha’aretz: Israel ground operation in Gaza becomes inevitable. One would guess that is part of what the US warship off the coast of Lebanon is about – to deter Hezbollah if Israel moves against Hamas in Gaza. Heard earlier today such operations would be in March-April, with desire for stabiliity to be restored by time of Bush’s visit to Israel in May for Israel’s 60th anniversary. Then again, March is next week. So is a planned Rice visit to Israel. Jordan’s King Abdullah II is here this week and next, […]

I don’t want to go into a whole lot of detail about this, because I’m currently working on an article that in some ways grows out of it. But Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement that France is ready to re-negotiate its military treaties with its former colonies in Africa is motivated by more than just a desire to finally bring an end to the archaic and patronizing legacy of post-colonialism. France currently has 9,000 soldiers stationed in Africa, predominantly in four permanent bases. To give you a comparative idea, that would be the equivalent of 42,000 American soldiers based on relative population […]

I’ve got a hunch that we’re on the cusp of a popular Surge backlash, more widespread than what critics have suggested for the past few months. And when it does gather force, it will probably sound pretty much like what Sam Brannen, of the CSIS, says here. It’s already clear that the improved security environment in Iraq has not led to increased Iraqi investment in the political process in Baghdad. Brannen points out, though, what I’ve yet to see mentioned, namely that it has instead led to increased American investment in the political process in Baghdad. Increasingly, the United States […]

That, according to Holger Steltzner writing in the Wednesday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), is the amount of a “normal earner’s” income that flows to the German state in the form of direct or indirect taxes. This helps to explain the widespread practice of tax evasion in Germany, which has recently attracted international attention through the sting operations against Deutsche Post chief Klaus Zumwinkel and other German residents accused of hiding their wealth in Lichtenstein. “Moreover,” Steltzner adds, hardly anyone understands German tax law and knows the many exceptions involved. As consequence, practically every taxpayer has they feeling […]

Remember the case of David Hicks? The Australian terror suspect was held at Guantanamo for five years without being charged, but finally appeared before a Military tribunal in March 2007. Human Rights activists and journalists from Australia and all over the world swarmed Guantanamo to witness Hicks’ trial, and in the dispatches that resulted, Hicks was inevitably portrayed as hapless figure caught in the gears of the U.S. war machine — a wanna-be jihadist perhaps, but not a “real” terrorist; a patsy in a U.S. show trial. When Hicks pleaded guilty and was returned to Australia to serve a mere […]

Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias speculate about what the Turkish incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan means for the central government in Baghdad. Matthew argues that American approval of the incursion demonstrates once again Baghdad’s de facto powerlessness, thereby reinforcing its dependence on American military support. Kevin wonders if the central government in Baghdad actually has a dog in this fight: As near as I can tell, the central government in Iraq doesn’t actually care all that much about the Turkish incursion. They object in a pro forma way, of course, but that’s about it. Iraqi Kurdistan has been de facto independent […]

Yesterday I mentioned that India had successfully test-launched an undersea missile. Today the head of Pakistan’s navy declared that the test would trigger a regional arms-race. (There are some doubts as to whether China has already mastered the technology.): “We are aware of these developments, and these developments are taking place with a view to put nuclear weapons at sea and it is a very, very serious issue,” the state news agency quoted him as saying. Of course, having tested three nuclear capable missiles in the past year, Pakistan is hardly in the position of pointing the finger.

There’s been a lot of back and forth about David Signer’s WaPo piece this weekend taking the major media to task for ignoring foreign policy in its coverage of the presidential campaign. Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal has got all the links and some original insights that warrant a glance. I’d add that part of the problem has to do not with a lack of interest so much as a sense even among journalists that foreign policy is better left to experts and the specialized press. Most people are comfortable discussing the political calculus of tax cuts, even if they […]

Laura Rozen’s got a write-up of Nick Burns’ address to the Council on Foreign Relations. She also points to this NYRB piece by Thomas Pickering, William Luers and Jim Walsh titled, modestly enough, “A Solution to the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Standoff.” Laura was impressed by the longer time horizon Burns gave to resolve the Iran standoff (he believes it will play out at least into 2009), as well as by the more optimistic tone he adopted when discussing possible diplomatic solutions. Among the potential outcomes he mentioned was the oft-floated idea of a multi-lateral consortium enriching uranium outside Iran, with Russia […]

I mentioned that I spoke with a well-informed European official about the IAEA’s Iran report. On a hunch, I asked him what kind ofstrategic impact Turkey — whichhas really stayed on the sidelines of this issue — could make byactively siding with the West’s position. Without hesitation he saidit would make a huge difference. In addition to the obvious reasons(Islamic country, regional power, etc.), he explained that Turkey isone of the countries in the region he would be most worried aboutseeking a nuclear weapons capacity should Iran aquire a nuclear bomb.Although he did not explicitly connect the dots, I interpreted […]

I spoke with a well-informed European official, who was willing to provide some background to Friday’s IAEA Iran report on condition of anonymity. Now this person is not necessarily a disinterested observer, so there’s an element of spin to his observations. But I thought they were worth passing on because I’m familiar with his thinking on the matter and I consider it both sincere and convincing. He disagreed with the suggestion that the report was significant mainly for its difference in nuance to previous reports. The section on “alleged studies” (ie. weaponization programs), he said, was “something major” and included […]

Via Secret Défense comes the news that India’s defense ministry today announced the successful test-firing of an undersea missile, adding India to a very exclusive list of countries that have mastered the challenging technology. That the news coincides with Parag Khanna’s WPR article on the challenges facing India’s emergence as a modern economy strikes me as a poignant reminder of where so much of the wealth of the “second world” that could go into raising living standards and developing infrastructure will eventually be diverted. The launch is the latest in a tit for tat sequence of test firings between India […]

Once you get past all the speculation about how far into Iraqi territory Turkish forces intend to go (all the way to Qandil, 65 miles in?) and how long they’ll stay (permanent FOB’s to create a buffer zone?), this piece in Today’s Zaman is revealing for what it says about how Turkish analysts are interpreting the significance of the incursion. In a nutshell, they claim that it signals the isolation of Massoud Barzani and the end, for the time being, of Kurdish aspirations for a nation-state. The tell here is the advance American approval of the incursion, which amounts to […]