For a long time and until 2003, the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya was a critical filter through which supporters of war in Iraq channeled their most potent arguments in favor of an invasion...
I just returned to Kuwait, and have been in Iraq visiting forward operating bases in Anbar and Diyala provinces, as well as suburbs of Baghdad the last week, hence the recent silence on this blog given sporadic internet facilities in Iraq...
During the recent debate in Washington about what is gently termed the "soft partition" of Iraq, I have been remembering one of the macabre signature phrases of the Vietnam War: "It was necessary to destroy the town in order to save it..."
Few prospects are more disturbing than an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to New York did nothing to allay our concerns, despite his insistence that his country is interested in nuclear power only for electrical generation...
