6 Steps to Rebuild US Prestige

Bush isn't gone yet, and he's got unfinished business

(NEWSER) - It’s comforting to think of George W. Bush as yesterday’s news, but the Decider is still very much in office and itching to tie up loose ends. These “loose ends” might include signing a treaty with Iraq, or continuing his quixotic quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace, or, more terrifyingly, attacking Iran, writes Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. More»

Michael Hayden says it would have backfired then, and would now, too

(NEWSER) - George W. Bush's administration pondered an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and ultimately rejected it, says former CIA and NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden. He and others concluded that an attack on Iran's nuke factories "would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent—an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret," Hayden said, according to Foreign Policy . The same rationale holds true today, he warned: Go with diplomacy and back channels or risk pushing Tehran into speeding things up. More»

She recalls clashes with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush

(NEWSER) - It's time for Dick Cheney to take a little return fire from Condi Rice. Less than 2 months after his memoir described her as turning tearful during a political discussion , Condoleezza Rice has written her own book, No Higher Honor, which comes out next month, the New York Times reports. Rice recalls White House clashes and encounters with creepy foreign leaders:

• Rice argued with "ultra-hawkish" Cheney that terrorism suspects can't just be "disappeared"; President Bush agreed, and moved several from secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay.
• Rice opposed increasing troop levels in Iraq, telling Bush, "If they want to have a civil war we're going to have to let them." The president appeared pained over a war going badly, she writes.

'Enhanced' interrogation may have led to terror mastermind

(NEWSER) - Did waterboarding finally nail Osama bin Laden? Intelligence leading to the killing of the terror mastermind gleaned from prisoners, possibly during "enhanced" interrogation techniques, is reigniting debate about waterboarding. US officials learned the identity of bin Laden's key courrier from Guantanamo Bay inmates, and tracking that courrier led to bin Laden's hideout. Attorney General Eric Holder said he "didn't know" if harsh tactics were used to obtain the intelligence, notes ABC News . But former Vice President Dick Cheney said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the "enhanced interrogation" program "produced results that ultimately contributed to the success" of tracking down bin Laden. More»

Even Bush was better, Kristof writes

(NEWSER) - When is comes to Sudan , Barack Obama has been worse than even George W Bush, argues Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times , who despite his many failings, managed to secure the 2005 deal that ended Sudan's 20-year civil war. Obama's "incoherent, contradictory and apparently failing Sudan policy" is setting the stage for a bloody war or another round of genocide next year, when oil-rich Southern Sudan is likely to vote to secede. More»