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Exiting Iraq Is Easier Than They Say
The Nation (web-only)
July 16, 2008
Chris Toensing

The debate over the war in Iraq follows a yellowing script: The minute someone suggests that the US move to withdraw its troops, war supporters cry “Havoc!” True to form, when no less a figure than Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated he wants a timeline for a US pullout, John McCain summoned the specter of dire consequences. “I’ve always said we’ll come home with honor and with victory and not through a set timetable,” McCain said. In his major foreign policy speech on July 15, Barack Obama affirmed his support for a withdrawal timetable, adding that the US must “get out as carefully as we were careless getting in.” Obama’s position is the correct one, but he, like many other war critics, has done too little to counter the refrain that withdrawal is simply “cutting and running,” a recipe for disaster. Full Story>>

Presidential Pandering on Palestine
Asheville Citizen-Times
July 4, 2008
Bayann Hamid

At the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) earlier this month, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama competed over who would become the “candidate for Israel.” The match came to a draw when both candidates pledged undying and unconditional support for Israel. While their support for “Israel right or wrong” was unquestionable, at the end of all the commotion, the most pertinent question for Americans and the world remained unasked and unanswered: Who is the candidate for peace? Full Story>>

The Next President's Iran Dilemma
In These Times
February 6, 2008
Chris Toensing

Quick: Who is the strategic victor, to date, of the war in Iraq? Nearly everyone outside the Bush administration (and perhaps some within it) would answer: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The catastrophe of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has bolstered the clerical regime in Tehran, while souring ordinary Iranians on the prospect of U.S.-delivered “democracy.” The occupation has done so by emplacing Iranian-backed Shiite Islamists in power in Baghdad and cooling the jets of those in Washington hoping to “shock and awe” Iran's mullahs. Full Story>>

Libya's Fat Cat
The Topeka Capital-Journal
Januwary 11, 2008
Chris Toensing

Few dictators in the world are sitting prettier in 2008 than Col. Muammar Qaddafi of Libya. In a region full of potentates and presidents-for-life, his reign is supreme. Having seized power in a 1969 coup, he has ruled his country for longer than any other Arab head of state. And now, as wintry January begins, the colonel has quietly completed his journey back in from the cold. Full Story>>