The Obama Doctrine: Silent War

Bill Keller offers lessons from Iraq

(NEWSER) - As the drum-beating grows louder on Iran and Syria, Bill Keller looks back on Iraq and beyond. To avoid a debacle, there are five questions we should ask ourselves before entering a war, he writes in the New York Times :

1. "How is this our fight?" Are American interests directly involved, as in Afghanistan after 9/11? Are we supporting an ally? Or are we simply "promoting freedom"?
2. "At what cost?" While Libya was easily targeted at low risk to American troops, an attack on Syria would mean, in one military expert's view, "we'd be killing a lot more people." Then there's the cost of stretching troops and the financial implications of war.

But Obama, Clinton don't seem to be holding their breath

(NEWSER) - Red-faced American officials have requested that Iran return a crashed US drone —the one apparently paraded before Iranians and stripped of whatever secrets it was carrying. "We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," said President Obama in the first confirmation that the US has requested the craft's return. Tehran claims the RQ-170 Sentinel was brought down by a savvy cyber attack; Washington says it crashed due to a malfunction, notes the BBC . Secretary of State Hillary Clinton isn't optimistic about the drone's return. "We are very clearly making known our concerns. We submitted a formal request for the return of our lost equipment, as we would in any situation," she said. "Given Iran's behavior to date, we do not expect them to reply." More»

Roger Cohen asks: have we not learned 'the lessons of Iraq'?

(NEWSER) - A Washington Post journalist suggested that a “showdown” with Iran could help the US economy; now a key GOP senator wants to “go beyond sanctions” and “neuter that regime.” Seeing a blinded, one-legged veteran makes Roger Cohen wonder: Have we forgotten the cost of war? It’s “the stimulus package from Hell,” he writes in the New York Times . More»

New prez is doing fine in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, but no one notices

(NEWSER) - Despite the howls of protest over President Obama's Nobel Prize and the administration’s "dithering" on Afghanistan , the fact is that the new president’s foreign endeavors deserve good marks, says Juan Cole. Cole gives Obama an A for his Iranian statesmanship, a B for pulling out of Iraq as promised—albeit coordinating poorly with the Iraqis—and a B for making Pakistan own “the problem of the Pakistani Taliban.” Not bad for eight months. More»

Latest evidence of breach with ally

(NEWSER) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia fired a warning shot at the Bush administration yesterday, calling Iraq “an illegal foreign occupation” and urging Arab leaders to unite to prevent U.S. domination of the region. The Saudis "are telling the U.S. they need to listen to their allies rather than imposing decisions on them,” Middle East expert Mustapha Hamarneh tells the New York Times. More»