How To Deal With Iran

Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has a few pointers on handling the Iranians, among them:
Washington should refrain from making any grand overtures to Tehran that could redeem Ahmadinejad’s leadership and increase his popularity ahead of the country’s June 2009 presidential elections. Since assuming office in August 2005, Ahmadinejad has used his [...]

Gates Stays

It’s all but official now that Robert Gates will be staying on as secretary of defense after Obama takes office.:
[Senior adviser David] Axelrod said Obama enjoys and invites strong opinions and there will be no “potted plants” in his Cabinet. 
Gates has been negotiating with Obama emissaries over his deputies — some will be retained, and some [...]

Cabinet Reaction

Tom Barnett likes what he sees so far of Obama’s appointments:
Obama is trying to satisfy in a lot of different directions, and I think it’s a good mix to date. They reflect a true CEO mindset that wants very strong subordinates, and I like a cabinet for America right now that reflects too much agenda [...]

Obama-Gates Courtship

It begins:
A senior adviser to Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday that the Democrat might see Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a candidate to remain at the Pentagon if Obama wins the White House.
We don’t hear any Shermanesque statements coming from Gates:

Earlier this week, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates has not changed his view on retiring.
”The [...]

Reply to Lindgren

In reviewing Jim Lindgren’s response to my criticism of his post on a “civilian national security force,” one thing stands out: He never addressed my suspicion that he was unaware of the debate, led by our current secretary of defense, that’s been going on about the need to beef up the civilian, non-military infrastructure for [...]

Rule, Britannia

The Telegraph reports that UK forces won a major battle in Afghanistan to deliver material to a hydro project. Interesting sidelight:
The Chinese-made turbine will be installed as part of a project funded by the American development agency USAID to increase the output of the Kajaki power plant.
Chinese engineers already on the ground will install the [...]

Civil-Military Cooperation

The Navy is in the midst of running a sea-borne aid mission to several Central and South American countries. One facet underscores a point Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been trying to make:
While “Joint ops” is all the rage in military circles these days, Continuing Promise takes the concept one step further, embedding civilians from [...]

Lindgren Responds

Volokh Conspiracy co-blogger Jim Lindgren responded to my post on his recent piece on foreign policy and Obama’s service program in comments. I’m taking the liberty of putting what he had to say up here on the main page to make sure people see it. Time doesn’t permit me to respond further today, but I [...]

Not Invented Here

Some days, you read something and just slap your head in disgust at the failure of otherwise intelligent people to stay current, or at least to know their own limitations. Today, that something was a post on the Volokh Conspiracy. Authored by Volokh co-blogger Jim Lindgren, it imputed shadowy motives to a comment Obama ad-libbed [...]