This tribal approach has widespread support, in principle. The problem is that, in practice, the U.S. has often moved in the opposite direction in recent years. Rather than supporting tribal leaders, American policies have sometimes had the effect of undermining their ability to stand up to the Taliban.

The paper by Maj. Jim Gant, titled "One Tribe at a Time," has been spinning around the...]]> Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800 RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Looking at this city, you can imagine what a Palestinian state could someday be like if folks got serious: The streets are clean, there's new construction in every direction, and Palestinian soldiers line the roads. A visitor sees new apartment buildings, banks, brokerage firms, luxury car dealerships, and even health clubs.

These are "facts on the ground," as the Israelis like to say. And they are the result of a determined Palestinian effort, with U.S. and Israeli support, to begin creating the institutions of a viable Palestinian state. Even Israeli hard-liners, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, agree that the improvement in Palestinian...]]> Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800 WASHINGTON -- Among the cherished prerogatives of members of Congress is the right to second-guess. That ritual is now playing itself out with a vengeance as the solons of Capitol Hill attack the Federal Reserve for its role in last year's financial crisis.

The Fed made its share of mistakes in creating the bubble economy. But once the crisis hit, it was the Fed's innovative, try-anything response that saved the country from what might have been another Great Depression. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke deserves a public "attaboy" for finding ways to pump liquidity into credit markets that were on the verge of freezing up tight. Instead, he's getting a congressional...]]> Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800 WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, some commentaries have examined the damage to the U.S. Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few have spoken about the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, as an extreme version of what can happen with an overstressed force.

This picture of a traumatized military is misleading. Certainly, the Army and the other services are stressed by the demands of combat. But what's striking to me this Veteran's Day week is how healthy the military is, given all the weight it has been carrying for the country these last eight years.

Facing a new and disorienting kind of warfare, the military has learned and adapted....]]> Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800 WASHINGTON -- The Iranians have a word they use to describe a political impasse. They speak of it as a bombast, which means a dead-end street, or a knot that can't be untied. That's a good description of the deadlocked debate in Tehran over the nuclear issue.

It's more than a month since what was touted as a breakthrough meeting with the Iranians in Geneva over their nuclear program. But the Iranians now seem to be backpedaling -- disavowing the tentative agreement that their own negotiators had signaled they supported.

"The feeling now is that the Iranians are unable to decide," says a senior European diplomat involved in the talks. Abbas Milani, a Stanford...]]> Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0800 WASHINGTON -- With the "re-election" of President Hamid Karzai, if that's the right word for a process that featured fraudulent balloting and a canceled runoff, the United States now confronts the hardest puzzle of all about Afghanistan: How to improve governance there -- which most experts agree is essential to defeat the Taliban -- without taking even more control from Afghan officials?

President Obama took the first step out on this tightrope Monday, with a congratulatory phone call to Karzai that was at the same time a backhanded slap. He urged the Afghan president to launch "a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption." Karzai responded Tuesday by promising that, in...]]> Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 BARAKI BARAK, Afghanistan -- Hikmatullah, a tall Pashtun farmer dressed in turban and white cloak, looks slightly bewildered as a U.S. Army officer offers him tea and bread and questions him about what he wants from life. A crowd has gathered around them on the steps of the local bakery, young boys and old tribesmen gawking to see what the fuss is about.

Hikmatullah says he's a happy man with five children, and that what he wants most is security. From the quizzical look on the farmer's face, perhaps he's wondering: Can these pleasant, tea-drinking American soldiers really be the same people who are assaulting Taliban fighters in this region of eastern Afghanistan?

The...]]> Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Here's what you would see if you traveled this week to Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the two big battlegrounds of the Afghanistan War: This is a conflict that is balanced tenuously between success and failure. The U.S. has deployed enough troops to disrupt the Taliban insurgency and draw increasing fire, but not enough to secure the major population centers. That's not a viable position.

I visited military bases in the two provinces this week, traveling with a group of senior U.S. military officials. I was able to hear from local commanders and talk with a few Afghans. I'll describe what I learned, positive and negative, so that readers can weigh this...]]> Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 BAGHDAD -- From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zahwra Park, and go-karts and waterslides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses -- all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq.

But down below, it turned out to be a morning from hell. Terrorists exploded two massive car bombs at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration, killing more than 100 and wounding more than 500. It was the worst day of violence this year, and it was, as the terrorists intended, a reminder of the fragility of Iraqi security.

Around the time the bombers struck, I...]]> Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 ISLAMABAD -- Talking with a Pakistani intelligence officer here last week about the army's invasion of South Waziristan, a visitor noted that troops have been marching down these same rough roads, toward the same tribal strongholds, for more than 150 years -- never with much success.

"Yes," replied the Pakistani official, "it's all been done before." The difference, he explained, was that this time the army would follow its invasion with a process of political and economic development to begin what the mighty British Raj never could accomplish -- the gradual assimilation of Waziristan into the rest of the country.

The value of history is that it teaches us to be skeptical...]]> Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term "miscreants" when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western tribal areas. This moniker conveyed the sense that the Taliban was a nuisance -- a ragtag band of fanatics and gangsters who could be placated with peace deals -- rather than a mortal threat to the nation.

That state of denial appears to be over. This week's offensive against Taliban sanctuaries in South Waziristan is the latest sign that Pakistan has awakened to the seriousness of its domestic terrorism problem. Here's how one of Pakistan's top military commanders put it to me, expressing sentiments that are...]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Since you're probably not a regular reader of the trade publication Nucleonics Week, let me summarize an article that appeared in its Oct. 8 issue: It reported that Iran's supply of low-enriched uranium -- the potential feedstock for nuclear bombs -- appears to have certain "impurities" that "could cause centrifuges to fail" if the Iranians try to boost it to weapons grade.

Now that's interesting. The seeming breakthrough in negotiations on Oct. 1 in Geneva -- where Iran agreed to send most of its estimated 1,500 kilograms of low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment -- may not have been exactly what it appeared. Iran may have had no alternative but...]]> Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan could be the most important decision of Barack Obama's presidency. Maybe that's why he is, in effect, making it twice.

What's odd about the administration's review of Afghanistan policy is that it is revisiting issues that were analyzed in great detail -- and seemingly resolved -- in the president's March 27 announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The recent recommendations from Gen. Stanley McChrystal were intended to implement that Af-Pak strategy -- not send the debate back to first principles.

The March document stated that the basic goal was "to prevent Afghanistan from becoming the al-Qaeda safe haven that it was before...]]> Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- It's a classic example of the law of unintended consequences: Congress triples its assistance to Pakistan as part of a deepening strategic relationship. But members of Congress, always eager to tell other countries what to do, insert conditions that Pakistanis find insulting. As a result, rather than welcoming American aid and friendship, Pakistanis are indignant at U.S. meddling.

When I was in Islamabad a week ago, the Pakistani press was dripping with anti-American outrage. And this week, the Pakistani military and parliament were both protesting U.S. interference. All this in response to legislation that was meant to symbolize U.S. support for Islamabad's growing...]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Is there an "Obama Doctrine" lurking among the zigs and zags of his foreign policy over these first nine months? I think there is, in the president's repeated invocation of global rights and responsibilities. The problem is that this lawyerly framework hasn't been applied to the really tough issues such as what to do in Afghanistan.

I have been looking for a "doctrine" because, frankly, strategic thinking has been this administration's weak spot. A pragmatic president has surrounded himself with pragmatic advisers -- a retired Marine general as national security adviser, a former senator as secretary of state, a career intelligence officer as secretary of defense....]]> Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0700 SWAT VALLEY, Pakistan -- A visit to this battlefield of Pakistan's war against the Taliban left one indelible image -- of a teenage boy's beaming smile of relief -- that conveys what a successful counterinsurgency campaign is all about.

Let me explain: When Pakistani troops regained control of Swat in a violent campaign this past summer, they found scores of traumatized teenagers who had been forced to work as boy soldiers. About a month ago, the army opened a rehabilitation clinic for them. It is called "Sabaoon," which is the Pashtun word for the first ray of light of the morning.

When I visited the facility last week with the Pakistani commander in Swat, Maj. Gen. Ishfaq...]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WANA, Pakistan -- The zigzag trip to this garrison town deep in the tribal area of South Waziristan tells a story that's more than a century old: The fierce Mehsud tribe and its allies are a law unto themselves in these rugged mountains, and wise travelers steer clear of their strongholds.

The Mehsud warriors have defied the British Raj, the Pakistani army and lately the Americans and their high-tech Predator drones. Since 2001, they have offered a safe haven to al-Qaeda and the Taliban and, in the process, made Waziristan one of the most dangerous spots on earth.

A new battle for control of Waziristan is coming, as the Pakistani military prepares a ground offensive in the...]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 ISLAMABAD -- The headquarters of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate is a black-ribbed stucco building in the Aabpara neighborhood of the capital. Its operatives, described by wary Pakistanis as "the boys from Aabpara," play a powerful and mysterious role in the life of the country. Their "tentacles," as one ISI officer terms the agency's spy networks, stretch deep into neighboring Afghanistan.

The ISI agreed to open its protective curtain slightly for me last week. This unusual outreach included a long and animated conversation with Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the agency's director general, as well as a detailed briefing from its counterterrorism experts....]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 LONDON -- When you think about future financial stability, ask yourself this contrarian question: Why is it that the nefarious hedge funds, supposedly the bad boys of the financial world, actually came through last year's crisis in relatively good shape?

It was widely predicted that these funds, which invest huge pools of capital for their wealthy clients, would have a crackup like that of the regulated banks. Some did go under, but the general catastrophe never happened. Why? The answer partly is that the hedge funds still had to live by the old capitalist rules: There was no lender of last resort to bail them out. So these unregulated managers turned out to be more cautious than...]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 LONDON -- When it comes to Afghanistan, the British have a special perspective: Every mistake the United States has made recently, they made 150 years ago. So it's worth listening to British experts in the debate over Afghan strategy.

Afghanistan drove the British bonkers for much of the 19th century. They couldn't control the place, but they couldn't walk away from it, either. They found that there wasn't a military solution, but there wasn't a non-military solution. It was a question of managing chaos. Sound familiar?

The best answer the British came up with was working with tribal leaders -- paying them bribes, wooing them away from the baddies who genuinely threatened...]]> Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 LONDON -- The central question about Iran, as Henry Kissinger has observed, is whether it wants to be a nation or a cause. In the case of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's clearly a revolutionary cause. He has said as much himself in an intriguing and occasionally bizarre series of public letters to America over the past three years.

The revolutionary zealotry of Ahmadinejad and his allies is among the obstacles the Obama administration faces as it prepares for Oct. 1 talks with the Islamic republic. As Ahmadinejad's letters make clear, he doesn't want a seat at the negotiating table with the great powers; he wants to overturn that table.

Ahmadinejad defies not only the...]]> Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 PARIS -- The gauzy romance and the gritty political reality of the spy business came into focus in two encounters in Europe this week. If the two can be linked, maybe there's a chance of easing the destructive battles between Congress and the CIA.

What's required is a new approach to intelligence based on the need for political sustainability. This, in turn, will require a degree of transparency with Congress and the public that may make the intelligence community uncomfortable. But frankly, after the torture debate, there's no other way.

First, the romance: I attended a ceremony at the Elysee Palace honoring one of the great spies of World War II, a Frenchwoman named...]]> Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- How can America help a fragile Iraq as U.S. troops and influence there decline? The Obama administration should revisit one of the good ideas proposed by the 2006 Baker-Hamilton commission -- namely an "international support group" that can draw together the neighboring countries to keep Iraq from blowing apart.

The Baker-Hamilton recommendations are mostly forgotten, swept away by President Bush's 2007 surge of U.S. troops. That certainly improved security, but the recent bombings in Iraq are a reminder that the surge didn't usher in a new era of peace and love. Political reconciliation is still more slogan than reality -- and the neighbors are more a lurking menace...]]> Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- The political situation inside Iran remains murky, to put it mildly, in the aftermath of last June's turbulent election. But some clues can be found in the recent purge of the country's intelligence service.

The turmoil suggests that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pushing to tighten his control of the regime, even at the cost of alienating some powerful fellow conservatives. But the decisive voice remains the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His legitimacy has taken a hit -- and he's riding a tiger in trying to control Ahmadinejad -- but he's still No. 1.

The head of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, a ferocious cleric named...]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- When President Obama visited the Cleveland Clinic in July, he lauded its innovative approach to low-cost, high-quality health care: "They've set up a system where patient care is the No. 1 concern, not bureaucracy," he said. "Those are changes that I think the American people want to see."

That's exactly right, Mr. President. But you're running out of time. And rather than trying to reassure people that their health care plans won't change under your reform proposals, you should be honest that embracing the Cleveland Clinic model would represent a revolution in American medicine.

The "cowboy capitalism" model for health care, in which every doctor, hospital...]]> Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- It's the nature of Afghanistan that nothing there ever works out quite the way outsiders expect, and that certainly was the case with last month's presidential election. Rather than producing a mandate for good governance, as U.S. officials once hoped, the balloting has instead brought allegations of fraud, political squabbling and delay, and a new set of headaches in the war against the Taliban.

The Obama administration has talked of Afghanistan as the "good" war (as opposed to the "bad" one in Iraq), where more U.S. troops and a smarter strategy would produce results. But getting Afghanistan right won't be as easy as it once seemed.

As key policymakers...]]> Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- "Let's get on with it." That was a signature line of the late CIA director, Richard Helms, the savviest spymaster this country has produced. And it's the right watchword for the agency as it tries to refocus on its core intelligence mission after a ruinous foray into the "enhanced interrogation" of al-Qaeda prisoners.

CIA officers aren't idiots. They knew they were heading into deep water -- legally and morally -- when they signed up for the interrogation program. That's part of the agency's ethos -- doing the hard jobs that other departments prudently avoid. They hoped their government would protect them from future reprisals, but the graybeards were always dubious...]]> Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- As security deteriorates in Baghdad, there's a new cause for worry: The head of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has quit in a long-running quarrel with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- depriving that country of a key leader in the fight against sectarian terrorism.

Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, the head of Iraqi intelligence since 2004, resigned this month because of what he viewed as Maliki's attempts to undermine his service and allow Iranian spies to operate freely. The CIA, which has worked closely with Shahwani since he went into exile in the 1990s and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training the INIS, was apparently caught by...]]> Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- It's crunch time for the Obama administration on two of its toughest foreign-policy challenges -- the Arab-Israeli peace process and the war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these tests are coming at a moment when Obama is weakened by the health care debate and has less political capital to spend.

Obama and his aides understood long ago that they would have only a limited window of opportunity. Way back in the summer of 2007, when few people gave him much chance of winning, Obama quizzed former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski about what a president could accomplish in his first six months, when his popularity was greatest.

In the hours after...]]> Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Reading the transcripts of President Obama's "town hall meetings" this month on heath care reform is painful. He's preaching the right gospel, but the parishioners are getting restless. The harder he tries to sell his program, the louder and angrier the debate gets -- and the more the general public tunes out the politicians.

It reminds me of the polarizing Iraq debate of several years ago. Forgive the analogy between war and health care, but maybe Obama needs the medical equivalent of a Gen. David Petraeus -- that is, a professional who can break through the political chaff and describe a strategy for reform that can unite the country.

I have a nomination for...]]> Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Thinking about Iran policy these days can make you dizzy, so let's try a simple analogy: The neighborhood troublemaker has driven his car off the road and is stuck in a ditch. He is gunning his engine, but just spinning his wheels. What should we do in response?

Personally, I would wait for the dust to settle. I would want that cocky driver to ask for help before throwing him a rescue line. If he needs a tow, he should offer an attractive deal -- starting with a promise that he will stop terrorizing the neighborhood.

There's noise from inside the stranded car, too, suggesting a quarrel: Maybe someone else -- a less reckless driver -- will take the wheel. Maybe...]]> Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:00:00 -0700 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- It was an unsettling image: Arrayed in front of the neighborhood barbershop last week were four burly men with the characteristic earpieces and bulky suits that marked them as security officers. Inside, gracing the barber's chair, was a well-trimmed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Mueller.

Perhaps in today's Washington, the FBI director truly needs a security detail to protect him when he gets a haircut. But I wonder. From my vantage, the blatant obviousness of his bodyguards only called attention to him. At the grocery store across the street, he was the talk of the checkout line. "Who's over at the barbershop?" "The FBI guy,...]]> Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- The stock market's surge last week could almost make you think that the go-go years are coming back. But listening to Obama administration officials and business leaders over the last few weeks, I drew a less rosy picture of our economic future. Our recovery is likely to be a "V" shape so wide it looks like an "L," gradually sloping upward as America recovers from the long, debt-fueled boom that began in the 1980s.

It's an economy in rehab, you might say, working off the excesses and imbalances that created the crash of 2008. Savings rates will remain high, as people try to protect themselves and their families from another market collapse; the chronic trade...]]> Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- When the CIA's alleged assassination program surfaced this month, the first reports focused on what hadn't been done: Congress hadn't been briefed, supposedly on orders from Vice President Dick Cheney, and the program hadn't actually resulted in any "hit team" attacks on al-Qaeda operatives.

The first failing upset House Democrats, and they demanded an investigation. But the second issue is in some ways more interesting for what it reveals about the bureaucratic and legal culture in which the CIA operates.

The program began soon after Sept. 11, 2001, as part of a broader anti-terrorism effort that had the vivid code name "Cannonball." The initial idea...]]> Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- Six months on, how is Barack Obama doing in foreign policy? Some leading experts give the new president high marks for improving America's battered image abroad, but they warn that the hard work is still ahead.

Obama's first priority was boosting America's standing in a world angered by the Bush administration's arrogance and unilateralism. Obama rightly saw this as a major national security threat, and he used his charisma to change that image, in a hurry.

And to a large extent, Obama has succeeded. "We have taken off the table reflexive anti-Americanism as a reason not to deal with us," says Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. "We're not shimmying...]]> Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- As other countries watch the United States lacerate its intelligence service -- for activities already investigated or never undertaken -- perhaps they admire America's commitment to democracy and the rule of law. More likely, I fear, they conclude that we are just plain nuts.

The latest "scandals" involving the Central Intelligence Agency are genuinely hard to understand, other than in terms of political payback. Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate criminal actions by CIA officers involved in the harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda prisoners. But the internal CIA report on which he's said to be basing this decision was...]]> Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 MOSCOW -- The un-modern face of Russia's economic "modernization" was evident in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's response to the nation's credit crunch. Last month he ordered state-controlled banks to lend $13 billion -- and said that the banks' CEOs couldn't take their summer vacations until they had done his bidding.

Russia today often seems to combine the worst aspects of a free market and a command economy. It has the deal-making and corruption of the new capitalism, and the top-heavy bureaucratic inefficiency of the old communism. The result is an economy that seems stuck in second gear, even as the nations Russia sees as its peers -- Brazil, India and China -- continue to...]]> Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 WASHINGTON -- I grew up in the shadow of Robert McNamara, almost literally. My father, Paul Ignatius, joined his team at the Pentagon in 1961 and remained with him through the Vietnam years as a close aide, and afterward, as a friend. So for me, McNamara's death evokes a whole world of relationships and dreams and reversals that characterized the Washington of the 1960s.

I have an old photograph that evokes what 1961 felt like, if you were an 11-year-old watching the McNamara era dawn at the Pentagon. It shows my dad's swearing-in for his first job at the Pentagon as assistant secretary of the Army, and my mother and me looking up at him with measureless pride and confidence. The...]]> Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 MOSCOW -- The Obama administration has talked about a "reset" in Russian-American relations. But a Russian analyst shrugs his shoulders when he's asked about the term. "What happens when you press the reset button on a computer?" he muses. "It goes dark, and then after a while the same screen comes back again."

That skeptical comment offers the right perspective on President Barack Obama's visit here, which starts Monday. Both Russians and Americans want to avoid a public failure, and the summit is likely to yield a joint "presidential commission" and other modest agreements. But neither side is ready to address the other's fundamental security concerns. And until that changes,...]]> Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0700 MOSCOW -- As Barack Obama packs his suitcase for his trip to Russia next week, he should bring along a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov." For the modern Russia of Vladimir Putin is still struggling with the same political riddles that Fyodor Dostoyevsky described 130 years ago.

Human beings would happily trade their freedom for food and security, Dostoyevsky wrote in the novel's famous chapter, "The Grand Inquisitor." In place of this anarchic freedom, the Inquisitor offered the people "miracle, mystery and authority. And mankind rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep, and that at last such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much suffering, had been taken from...]]>