Our photo site, LightBox, has a powerful collection of images by some of the world’s best photojournalists from the Bosnian War, which began 20 years ago this month. I wrote the following brief observation to accompany the spread:
Foreign Policy
Afghanistan Opinion Reaching Peak Anti-Iraq Levels
Just how unpopular has the war in Afghanistan become? In the latest CBS News-New York Times poll, 69% of respondents said they didn’t think the U.S. should be at war there. Just 29% say we’re “doing the right thing” by continuing …
Obama, the Korean DMZ and Fuzzy Red Lines
On a chilly spring Sunday, with the sun peeking through the clouds, President Barack Obama visited Camp Bonifas — named for a U.S. soldier who was decapitated with an ax by North Korean troops — along the Korean demilitarized …
Israel’s Rule of Law
Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled against the Netanyahu government and order an unsanctioned Israeli settler outpost on the West Bank to be shut down by August. Netanyahu had wanted the outpost to remain open for business in perpetuity–or close to perpetuity, 2015, by which time the government would have argued the permanence of the …
Ten Years Is Enough: Time for an Endgame in Aghanistan
For my print column this week, which TIME subscribers can find here, I decided to check in with some of the military veterans I wrote about last summer my “New Greatest Generation” cover story–especially the sergeants–to see how they were reacting to the news of the alleged massacre perpetrated by Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. Not …
Republicans Stay to Obama’s Right on Afghanistan
The massacre of sixteen Afghan civilians near Kandahar has thrust Afghanistan back into the political debate. (Yes, there is a real war going on, and it’s not the one for bound delegates in Tampa.) For a moment early this week it …
Eying the Conflict Timeline with Iran
When will the U.S. go to war with Iran? That question was on the minds of President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their summit this week in Washington, as Massimo Calabresi and I write in this week’s dead tree version of the magazine.
Netanyahu Signals Determination on Iran, But War Will Have to Wait
Had he been speaking Hebrew in a dramatic TV broadcast back home, parts of Benjamin Netanyahu’s fire-and-brimstone speech Tuesday night might have been mistaken for the words of an Israeli prime minister about to launch a fateful war. He painted Iran’s nuclear program as an apocalyptic extermination threat redolent of the Nazi …
Iran Notes
Some interesting foreign policy developments over the weekend:
“Green-on-Blue” Violence Could Alter U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan
Pentagon officials won’t concede it, but privately defense officials say the spate of “green-on-blue” killings by Afghans of their purported U.S. allies over the past two weeks could lead to major changes in U.S. strategy. If they continue, the U.S. will face a brutal choice: pull out, or double down.
Afghan Reality
Two more Americans were killed today in Afghanistan–in Zhari district, just outside Kandahar, a place I know well, having embedded twice with U.S. units there. This has become business as usual in Afghanistan, especially since U.S. troops accidentally burned some Qurans a few weeks ago. It is, of course, infuriating. And it raises a …
North Korea Nuclear Suspension: Diplomatic Coup for Obama, but No Rapid Change Expected
U.S. officials cautiously welcomed the news on Wednesday that North Korea has agreed to a moratorium on long-range missile launches, nuclear tests and nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, at its Yongbyon facility. The deal will also allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into the country. Secretary of State …
Making Iran a Campaign Issue May Not Prove Easy for the GOP
In Washington, D.C., Iran seems to be on everyone’s minds.
Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie this week made the case in an op-ed in Foreign Policy that in order to win the White House, the eventual GOP nominee should focus on international affairs rather than the domestic economy. “The Republican candidate should …