Sharif’s Return
The differences are greater than the similarities, but somehow the Saudi decision to send exiled politician Nawaz Sharif back to Pakistan on an airplane belonging to King Abdullah reminds me of the...
View ArticleAn Isolated Extremist?
In his remarkably unenthusiastic and perfunctory appearance yesterday (couldn’t he at least have shaved or put on a tie?), Obama uttered this line: “This incident, like several that have preceded it,...
View ArticleObama Tries Once More
In a few hours, Obama went from not wanting to point fingers to labeling the intelligence community as the root of the Christmas Day bombing fiasco. The New York Times reports: President Obama said...
View ArticleTerrorist Recidivism
I recall visiting Saudi Arabia a couple of years ago and being briefed by Saudi officials on their program to reeducate and rehabilitate Islamist extremists in their prisons. The program had long been...
View ArticleAppeasement Won’t Woo Terrorists
Yesterday President Obama declared that in light of the “unsettled situation” in Yemen, he will not be transferring detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to that country. At the same time, Obama declared:...
View ArticleThey Were “Aspirational”
There seemed to be both a bureaucratic and an analytical “disconnect” in the posture communicated by the Obama administration yesterday on the Christmas airliner bombing. On the bureaucratic side, we...
View ArticleThe Yemen Project
Frederick Kagan and Christopher Harnisch have a useful think piece in the Wall Street Journal today on applying “smart power” in Yemen. Their series of excellent points culminates in the suggestion of...
View ArticleToo Much of a “Light” Thing
The profile of Country A in Yemen associates it with domestic military raids by the corrupt, ineffective central government. Country B’s profile in Yemen involves contracts to build a railroad and new...
View ArticleMichael Hayden vs. Obami’s Folly
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden is the latest and among the most credible critics of the administration’s handling of the Christmas Day bombing. He writes: We got it wrong in Detroit on Christmas...
View ArticleUndoing the Damage — We Hope
As Stephen Hayes details, the Christmas Day bomber is now talking and the Obami have changed their tune. For days and weeks we heard from Obama’s flacks and from leaks in mainstream news outlets that...
View ArticleWhat if They Got Away?
Eli Lake reports: U.S. and allied counterterrorism authorities have launched a global manhunt for English-speaking terrorists trained in Yemen who are planning attacks on the United States, based on...
View ArticleKlein of Arabia (Again)
Joe Klein has a characteristically paranoid post in which he says that the criticisms of Barack Obama lodged by AIPAC and other “American Likudniks… teeter on the brink of treachery.” The AIPAC...
View ArticleObama OKs Assassination of American Citizen
…and no, it’s not Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spent years in the United States as an imam, is in hiding in Yemen. He has been the focus of intense scrutiny since he was...
View ArticlePetraeus Is Not Anti-Israel
In the never-ending debate about General Petraeus and Israel, a few more data points are in — and they buttress what I have said earlier, that he is hardly the Israel-basher that some on the Left (and...
View ArticleThe Senate Intelligence Committee: The System Sure Didn’t Work
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence put out a 55-page report finding 14 significant intelligence failings in connection with the Christmas Day bombing plot. These included problems with the...
View ArticleRE: Peaceful, Humanitarian, Civilian Flotilla
As Noah points out, the flotilla was many things — ingenious, sinister, deceptive, etc. — but not peaceful. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren writes in the New York Times: Peace activists are people who...
View ArticleYemen and the Biden Strategy
One of the most useful prisms through which to view Yemen and Somalia is that of the “Biden strategy” for the War on Terror. The strategy’s outlines are provided in this article, one of many recounting...
View ArticleSaudi Arms Sale: Which War in View?
The sheer size of the proposed $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia makes it worth critical reflection. The types of weapon systems in the Saudi shopping list are even more eye-catching. News outlets...
View ArticleLIVE BLOG: Expiration Date
“And we have sent a message from the Afghan border to the Arabian Peninsula to all parts of the globe: we will not relent, we will not waver, and we will defeat you.” And if not, we’re leaving anyway.
View ArticleLIVE BLOG: Mixed Messages to al-Qaeda
Obama to al-Qaeda: “We have sent a message from the Afghan border to the Arabian Peninsula to all parts of the globe: we will not relent, we will not waver, and we will defeat you.” But we will also...
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