Just published at the Washington Independent, where we bravely throw caution to the wind and frame diplomatic talks before they conclude! If the Iranian regime ultimately accepts the international community’s plan to enrich its uranium outside Iran, it will allow the Obama administration to say that its diplomatic efforts have, for the first time, resulted [...]

Using a variety of euphemisms for “white people,” Pat Buchanan, a man who has been part of the Washington political and media elite for 40 accountability-free years, writes: America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right. That’s via Zack Roth — who quips, “DON’T TELL MSNBC!” — and [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 817-09 October 20, 2009 DoD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Spc. Michael A. Dahl Jr., 23, of Moreno Valley, Calif., died Oct. 17 in Argahndab, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an [...]

So reports the Jerusalem Post. His call, really. Jeffrey Goldberg wrote earlier today: [I]n the best of all possible worlds, Michael Oren would go to J Street and say whatever’s on his mind. He has, indeed, spoken to left-wing groups already, but J Street is in a different, problematic class. If, in the coming years, [...]

(If you don’t get the headline, I’m having some fun with a classic Small Wars Journal post. All will become clear in a moment.) So you might have seen this New York Times piece about military frustration with the pace of the Obama decisionmaking process. I wrote pretty much a full-on rant about that here, [...]

Karzai to accept a run-off. Here’s Obama’s statement. Here’s UK PM Golden Brown’s. I note Brown saying “It is vital that the new Afghan Government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people.” I was surprised to read Bob Gates appearing to diminish that concern, but if you read through the guts of the piece [...]

You may never listen to that song the same way again after reading this through to the end. For my part, I’m not a Beatles fan, especially not the early Beatles. No hostility to them, they’re just not my thing. But now all early-Beatles fans must admit they have something in common with elements of [...]

Many is the time I have thought about this and wanted to warn Biggie. Alas, it is too late. Update: It’s– the– reeeeeee-mix!

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 814-09 October 19, 2009 DoD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Pfc. Daniel J. Rivera, 22, of Rochester, N.Y., died Oct. 18 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. He was assigned to the [...]

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann at the New America Foundation released a report on the CIA’s drone strike program. It considers the program to resulted in the deaths of between 250 to 320 Pakistani civilians between 2006 and the present, or a civilian kill-rate of around 30 percent.  You can read it here. I critiqued [...]