Such success as we have achieved in Iraq, like the strategic and tactical failures there that went before, is due largely to the (bewilderingly episodic) leadership of President Bush.

The U.S. military has supported and enabled the Sunni Awakening but we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that the U.S. military initiated or commands it.

Success in Iraq will come when Americans and Iraqis have arrived at a relationship durable enough to ride out political change in both societies.

If Iraq drops to page-three or page-four story by the end of 2008, that would qualify as a better outcome, if not exactly a “win.”

Leverage has always been the defining characteristic of statecraft done well. It is time we employed it strategically, not just tactically, in Iraq.

The Chinese Communist Party’s scheme for keeping political control after the Tiananmen crisis is now the problem.

For most of a war-weary public, the lull in violence is not enough to redeem the heavy costs of our ill-fated expedition into a Mesopotamian heart of darkness.

China’s creative, long-range thinking is running circles around the United States.

What imprint will the experience of Iraq leave on U.S.
ground forces? The picture is mixed.

Deep changes in Latin America demand a new U.S. agenda.