Iran is a threat because Washington says so. Certainly, WaPo accepts the charge at face value: Iran’s ambitions, which have cast a long shadow over the greater Middle East, may serve as a common bond keeping a frail peace process intact despite threats that have arisen even before the negotiations open Thursday at the State [...]

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I don’t dispute Dennis G’s simple take on the mid-term elections: In November we face a choice between the Confederate Party and modernity. But sweet baby jeebiz, that’s a downer. If “modernity” is defined as the corporate crony Democrats currently overseeing two wars, Plan Mexico, and a continuation of police state policies created by the [...]

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Oh, Daily Beast, you are a wonder. When I tire of the right wing war blather, there you are, serving up the liberal equivalent. But first, I agree with Atrios — Peter Beinart has a point: Last summer, he tried to split the difference—surging in Afghanistan while simultaneously pledging to retreat on the theory that [...]

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ONOZ. Foreign Affairs editor James Hoge on why [McChrystal] must be fired—and how Obama is in danger of becoming a wuss. Not a wuss! At first I thought this choice of words came from the Daily Beast editors, no strangers to crass and reductionist language. For most of the column, Hoge himself takes the long [...]

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I hate opinion pieces like these. Peter Beinart advances the useless notion that President Obama’s address to the West Point Academy wasn’t stirring enough: Obama is clearly trying to ensure that the Afghan war no longer be run on a blank check. That’s why he famously brought OMB Director Peter Orszag to be photographed at [...]

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