Outside the Beltway

Dick Cheney’s long-awaited book’s out and he promises lots of bombshells that will have heads exploding in DC.

Success in Libya does not make the American mission any less unjustified than it was on the day President Obama announced it.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave the strongest signal ever that there will be some U.S. military presence in Iraq after December 31st.

The U.S. and its allies are calling on Bashar Assad to step down, but there’s little we can do when he says no.

Iraq has become so dependent on Iran for its survival that it is endorsing the brutal tactics of Bashar Assad.

International options with respect to Syria are limited and likely to have little impact on the governments treatment of civilians.

The world is starting to denounce the crackdown in Syria, but the reaction seems unlikely to go much beyond strongly worded statements.

Tim Pawlenty’s foreign policy speech shows him siding with the hawks, and joining in the neocon distortion of Reagan’s legacy.

Ousting evil dictators is harder than it looks.

The House GOP and the White House moved one step closer to a constitutional confrontation, but is it much ado about nothing?

WaPo’s Jackson Diehl asks, “Will the GOP nominate a dove?”

The US spends a lot on defense relative to, well, the rest of the world.

It appears that the Syrian military is starting to fracture. Exactly how widespread this is remains to be seen.

A summary of the status of the “Arab Spring” uprisings with links to news coverage and commentary.

Once again, an American President thinks he can bring peace to the Middle East.

Last night’s Presidential Debate in South Carolina was interesting, but, in the end, not very important.

The NYT says it’s time for U. S. advisers and military air traffic controllers on the ground in Libya.

Events in Syria, and the world’s response to them, are revealing the moral bankruptcy of the justification for the war in Libya.

The “Obama Doctrine,” such as it is, seems to boil down to moral self-certainty combined with a glaring ignorance of reality. That’s a dangerous combination.

Senator Joe Lieberman said today that we should intervene in Syria using the same rationale we did for Libya. Because, you know, what’s the big deal about a fourth war?

Warren Christopher, Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of State, has died at 85.

We’re heading towards a future of higher food prices and more hunger.

The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

The lawyer who argued The Pentagon Papers case points out how Julian Assange is not Daniel Ellsberg, and how prosecuting him could have disastrous results for press freedom in the United States.

The usage of the recess appointment process is just another example of the need for institutional reform in the Senate.

The Feds famously got notorious mobster Al Capone on tax evasion charges. Will WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be done in by sex crimes?

Will Israel attack Iran ? You’d better hope not.

According to John Bolton, Israel has a deadline of August 21st to attack Iran’s nuclear program. This is the fourth deadline he’s set in the last three years.

Every new report out of Iran seems to bring us closer to the moment when Israel has decided it’s heard enough. What happens if that day actually happens ?