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»

Mitt would pursue 'peace through strength,' he says in 'Washington Post' op-ed

(NEWSER) - Mitt Romney has an op-ed in today's Washington Post explaining how he'd deal with Iran. The answer? He'd do what Ronald Reagan would, rather than what the "feckless" Barack Obama is doing. In Romney's telling, the Iran hostage crisis ended because "the Iranians well understood that Reagan was serious about turning words into action in a way that Jimmy Carter never was." Romney would pursue the same strategy of "peace through strength," he says. He would push for harsher sanctions, support Iranian dissidents, and install missile defense systems. 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»