Nuri al-Maliki was once dismissed as a powerless politician with a fleeting grip on his office. Now, though, the Iraqi prime minister is apparently strong enough to change the fundamental terms of the war debate in the U.S. presidential election in a way that dramatically improves Barack Obama’s standing on the issue.
A few weeks Read More
Here’s Joe Biden on an Obama campaign conference call earlier arguing that John McCain had no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to foreign policy:
"Quite frankly, I’ve known John for over 32 years. I don’t understand anything about John’s policy here. John talks about the central concern is the war on terror Read More
In theory, John McCain’s poll numbers should be improving right along with the news out of Iraq.
Just a year ago, daily news coverage was dominated by pictures and descriptions of carnage and chaos, and McCain seemed doomed: Even if he won the Republican nomination (which itself seemed a remote possibility last summer), his intimate Read More
Spain’s skimpy, ubiquitous, mass market clothing chain, Mango, is venturing where no Western retailer has been before–at least since the 2003 war–by opening a branch in Iraq, WWD reported today.
Undaunted by the political instability, sporadic violence, and relatively more modest style of dress that prevails in even the relatively peaceful, liberal Kurdish region Read More
Captain Stefan Barr said the scallops at the Gramercy Tavern could use a little more salt. He’s been back only a few months from his second tour in Iraq. For 10 years, he was one of the few, the proud, or, as he puts it, “the best”—a Marine. Now he lives in Soho.
Read More
As we noted recently, reporters and correspondents in Baghdad have had an increasingly difficult time in recent months getting their reports on air and their stories on the front pages of newspapers.
But this morning, seasoned war reporter Lara Logan of CBS News popped up on the front page of the New Read More
To reach Babak Dehghanpisheh, Newsweek‘s Baghdad Bureau Chief, you have to dial an twelve-digit number (that’s minus a series of zeros that you sometimes need to dial first) which rings him on his satellite phone in the house the magazine shares with two other media organizations inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.
Mr. Dehghanpisheh, who’s Read More
“It’s the oft-stated phrase that truth is the first casualty of war,” said Michael Ware, CNN’s Baghdad correspondent, on the telephone from Iraq. “In this war, as in every other conflict, everybody lies to you. Your government is lying to you. The Iraqi government is lying. The insurgents are lying. The militias are lying. The Read More
The Return of History and the End of Dreams By Robert Kagan Alfred A. Knopf, 115 pages, $19.95
Consider the natural history of the Detroit muscle car: The Mustang began life in 1963 as a stripped-down roadster in the European tradition. As the culture and market matured, Ford responded each year with ad hoc Read More
Students and other demonstrators who gathered in the main Quad of Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus yesterday were aware of the significance of the date they chose for their class walkout, a day after the 40th anniversary of the first in a wave of protests that rocked the campus in 1968.
Around noon, a couple Read More
