hmm, well, granted Haass has been a vocal critic of Bush foreign policy ever since leaving the State Department, but this is surely not a good sign…
Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president’s public optimism. “An opportunity?” Haass said with an incredulous tone. “Lord, spare me. [...]

A mentor of the Trudeau Foundation, with which I am associated, describes a recent meeting, overlapping ominously with the bombings in India and the start of the Lebanese escalation.

Two weeks ago, I joined 99 other “Muslim leaders of tomorrow” who gathered in Copenhagen to debate how Islam and the West could enrich [...]

A good discussion in the latest Boston Review on the state of development thinking. One of the things that bugs me about the MSM aid debate is the lack of intellectual and practical context. It often feels as if commentators, particularly those against raising development assistance levels, are stuck in 1970’s aid mentalities [...]

Fisk’s ‘Farewell to Beirut’ is a beautifully written portrait of the city from someone who has spent much of the past 30 years in its streets. One sided, certainly, but at least in this piece, his voice is free of polemic:
Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness [...]

Niall Ferguson, fellow Jesuite, argues in the LA Times that:
Such language can — for now, at least — safely be dismissed as hyperbole.This crisis is not going to trigger another world war. Indeed, I do not expect it to produce even another Middle East war worthy of comparison with those of June 1967 or October [...]

In that order, a la Bush-Cheney? I agree with Grunwald and AS that this is a possibility. The problem, of course, is that this is not the combination that will appear on the primary ballot. Such a ticket would require Obama first getting the nomination on his own. Which, for the very reason [...]

Human Rights Watch has a useful and balanced Q&A on the application of international humanitarian law to the current middle east violence. They answer questions such as whether Article 3 applies to both parties, and discuss the legality of many of the acts we have seen used by both sides – Hezbollah’s bombing of [...]

Kupchan and Takeyh have a scathing op-ed in yesterdays IHT. They hold no punches:
Instead, Washington’s ideological hubris and practical incompetence have succeeded only in setting the region ablaze, awakening extremist and militant voices.
The toppling of Saddam Hussein was intended to send shock waves across the Arab world, intimidating the region’s brittle tyrannies while encouraging [...]

Harper, the new Canadian PM, will be diverting his plane to pick up 130 evacuees (of the estimated 50,000 Canadian citizens currently in Lebanon) on his return from the G-8.

In response to questions, Harper denied the trip was a photo opportunity.
“It’s more than a symbolic trip,” he said. “There’s a need [...]

In a similar vein to the Truman Democrats, Beirnartian liberalism and Ikenberrian liberal realism, Robert Wright has weighted in with what he labels ‘Progressive Realism’. While the terminology is sure to make some oxblog readers (those who are neither liberals, nor realists) squirm, he argues that what is needed is the idealism traditionally attributed [...]

For what it’s worth, here are some random bits and pieces from some of the blogs I frequent:

Jentleson argues that the conflict, as it has regularly since ‘48, requires external crisis management, and wonders whether the Bush Administration will/can play this role?

Marshall argues that the administration’s silence is born of over-extension [...]

Andrew Brown asks why people are such jerks online? Although he suggests it’s because they are trying too hard to be journalists, his wittiest answer is unquestionably that: “we can type much faster than we can think.” TGA weighs in as well, with frustration:
To find these buried nuggets you have to take an exhausting five-mile [...]

In Tuesday’s most deadly attack, two pedestrians wearing vests made of explosives blew themselves up near a restaurant outside the walls of the Green Zone, within a few hundred yards of three busy entrances, Iraqi and American officials said. Soon after the initial blasts, a hidden bomb was detonated nearby, adding to the carnage, the [...]

LIVING CIVIL WAR: While I am in full support of all of the proper attention – if not action – that has been paid to Darfur over the past two years, the conflicts in Congo and Northern Uganda, despite horrific humanitarian costs, have received markedly less attention. I’ll return to Northern Uganda in [...]

I am currently working on a series of articles, popular and academic, on the US bombing of Cambodia. We have been using some remarkable new data that quite dramatically alters the history of this period - particularly regarding the versions outlined by Kissinger, Nixon and Shawcross, and the link between the bombing and the [...]

ASPEN: Clinton asks Rove, (via Fallows, in Aspen), what he would have done if Clinton’s political advisor had blown the cover of a CIA agent. Rove responds to Clinton, (via Isaacson, also in Aspen), with an expertly crafted hypothetical. Small world…

Hitchens critiques Vietnam-Iraq analogies in a manner that plainly demonstrates why his is a polemical voice to be cherished.
While his argument is fragmented and dangerously absolute (as it often is) and in the form of a response piece (likely scribbled in a mid-night fit of anger), the combination of a ruthless and [...]

According to a recent Telegraph poll (conducted by YouGov), British support for American politics, culture and role in the world is at a possible historic low. Granted there have been an inordinate number of these polls of late, usually conducted after a particularly contentious American action, gleefully reported by the media as further sign of [...]