WASHINGTON -- It has become commonplace since Sept. 11, 2001, to speak of the "war of ideas" between Muslim extremists and the West. But there has been too little...
WASHINGTON -- Diplomats love ambiguity. It allows them to fuzz up the hard parts of a negotiation -- the "final status" issues, as they're often called -- and save them...
WASHINGTON -- The headline read like something you might see in the conspiracy-minded Pakistani press: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants." But the...
WASHINGTON -- Iraq is the country that refuses to die: Saddam Hussein tried to break his people by torture and poison gas, but he failed. America arrogantly mismanaged...
WASHINGTON -- The bubbly enthusiasm that many analysts express about the Chinese economy reminds me of the old-time variety show host Lawrence Welk, who banished worries...
WASHINGTON -- The cynical (and usually correct) critique of economic sanctions was summed up this way by a retired U.S. diplomat named Douglas Paal: "Sanctions always...
WASHINGTON -- One of the problems with the U.S.-Pakistan relationship over the decades has been that the two sides tend to fall in and out of love like a tempestuous...
WASHINGTON -- On the day last week when President Obama was hosting his health care summit -- and struggling to make a fractured political system work -- a quiet event...
WASHINGTON -- Iran is conducting what U.S. officials say is a broad covert-action campaign to influence Iraq's elections next month, pumping money and other assistance...
WASHINGTON -- If you want to recall a moment that captured Barack Obama's special opportunity to pull the country together, rewind the tape to July 21, 2009. That was...
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden sometimes speaks in hyperbole, but the evidence suggests he basically had it right when he crowed on NBC's "Meet the Press" last...
WASHINGTON -- What did the world see as Iran celebrated the 31st anniversary of its Islamic revolution on Thursday? A hollowed-out regime that is better at repressing...
WASHINGTON -- At the risk of taking contrarianism to extremes, let me offer this suggestion: The global economy needs a "tea party" movement in Europe to lobby for...
WASHINGTON -- The key to Kabul lies in Islamabad, Adm. Mike Mullen likes to say, meaning that success in Afghanistan will be impossible without Pakistan's help. But the...
WASHINGTON -- In their joint operations against Taliban militants hiding in the tribal areas, the U.S. and Pakistan seem to have embraced a classic bit of battlefield...
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The World Economic Forum is the last place I would have expected to encounter the new populism. But when a venerable European central banker, a man...
WASHINGTON -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week expressed a truth that military commanders know better than anyone: "A political solution to all conflicts is the...
WASHINGTON -- It's the truism of the week: To surmount his political troubles, President Obama needs to show leadership -- especially on his signature issue of health...
WASHINGTON -- When an overwhelming natural disaster such as the Haiti earthquake kills many thousands of people, there is a natural human tendency to look for causes and...
WASHINGTON -- As the CIA mourns the officers who died in Khost, Afghanistan, last month, there's an understandable desire not to second-guess the procedures that allowed...
WASHINGTON -- The presidency of Barack Obama is becoming tangled, inexorably, in the spider web of terrorism. "We are at war against al-Qaeda," Obama said last week,...
WASHINGTON -- In terms of loss of life, the bombing of the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, may be the most costly mistake in the agency's history. So it's important to...
WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency should be asking some painful questions this week about its performance: How could a suicide bomber have flown to Detroit...
The U.S. economy survived the traumas of 2009, thanks to good policy and good luck. What worries me, looking ahead, is what might be called the "Californiazation" of...
WASHINGTON -- The headlines at year's end conveyed the eerie feeling that the world is running on replay: Terror plots aboard airliners, strikes against al-Qaeda...
WASHINGTON -- This was another year of the vanishing center in America. Despite the election of a president who promised to govern across party and racial lines,...
BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan -- It's a week before Christmas Eve, and the chow hall of this forward operating base north of Kandahar is decorated with twinkling blue and...
MATA KHAN, Afghanistan -- Adm. Mike Mullen, the personification of American military power, is walking the streets of this dusty village in Paktika province when the...
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The United States and Pakistan, always prone to bickering, need a big idea to unite and sustain them through the testing battle in Afghanistan. So...
WASHINGTON -- When the spy movie ends, the suave intelligence chief -- having outsmarted his enemies -- dusts off the lapels of his perfectly tailored suit and...
WASHINGTON -- For the past week, I have been mulling over two intriguing things President Obama said the day he announced his Afghanistan policy -- one about the...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- How will the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program evolve during the next year? If a simulation game played at Harvard last week is any guide,...
WASHINGTON -- President Obama has been deliberating for months over his Afghanistan strategy. But when it came time to explain that decision Tuesday, he was cool and...
WASHINGTON -- For a political horror show, fast forward to the summer of 2010: The unemployment rate is stubbornly high, hovering in a range between 9.3 percent and 9.7...
WASHINGTON -- With President Barack Obama finally ready to announce his decision about Afghanistan, it's a good time to examine the role played by Vice President Joe...
WASHINGTON -- While military officers wait for President Barack Obama to conclude his agonizingly slow review of Afghanistan policy, they've been reading a paper by an...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term "miscreants" when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western...
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...
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...
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....