Pentagon Report to Call for Steep Iraq Drawdown | Newsweek Periscope

MILITARY
A Few Good Viral Videos
Dan Ephron 11/15/2008 12:00:00 AM
Start with YouTube, but subtract the music videos, the unbridled exhibitionism, the weird, the lewd, the talented and the talentless. Screen the rest for national-security breaches and vulgarity and what are you left with? TroopTube: the Pentagon's new video site launched mainly for service members and their families. In the first 24 hours after it went live last week, 500 videos were uploaded, including "Wives Shout-Out to the Third Brigade A-Troop 133 Cavalry" (8,918 hits as of Nov. 14) and an action clip of a military mom and her baby titled "Scout Poops" (21 hits). Don't expect to find any LonelyGirl15s. TroopTube's closest thing to a video gone viral is Gen. David Petraeus's salute to the soldiers ("You really are the new greatest generation"), which is up to 20,000 hits.
THE ROAD TO THE INAUGURATION
Holding Pattern
John Barry 11/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
American elections are a powerful drug: they bring delusions of omnipotence. All that talk of "change" and "hope" brings demands for swift action: "Do it now," "first six months," "hundred days." The economic crisis may indeed demand speed, but in foreign policy the reality is that, on the afternoon of Jan. 20, President Obama will face the same challenges that President Bush did that morning. And none presents much opportunity for bold new initiatives.
INTERNATIONAL
We Should Talk to Our Enemies
Nicholas Burns 10/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
One of the sharpest and most telling differences on foreign policy between Barack Obama and John McCain is whether the United States should talk to difficult and disreputable leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. In each of the three presidential debates, McCain belittled Obama as naive for arguing that America should be willing to negotiate with such adversaries. In the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin went even further, accusing Obama of "bad judgment … that is dangerous," an ironic charge given her own very modest foreign-policy credentials.
POLITICS
The Books of John
Jonathan Karp 9/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
In the past 10 years, I've edited five books by John McCain and his longtime aide and collaborator, Mark Salter. At my urging, McCain and Salter have written a children's book of virtues, "Character Is Destiny"; a meditation on bravery, "Why Courage Matters"; a portrait of the maverick life, "Worth the Fighting For"; and an examination of decision making, "Hard Call." (Their first book, "Faith of My Fathers," recently returned to the best-seller list, where it initially spent half a year beginning in 1999.) Together, the books have helped define McCain's persona, and they've sold more than a million copies.
DIPLOMACY
Not Just Military
Tracy McNicoll 9/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
With France currently presiding over the European Union and no shortage of foreign policy mayhem, French diplomacy has been center stage. Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, alongside President Nicolas Sarkozy, negotiated a controversial six-point ceasefire plan days after the Russo-Georgian War began. They're now leading the effort to keep Moscow honest. Meanwhile, the French government is weathering public criticism over Afghanistan, where 10 of its soldiers were killed Aug. 18, the French army's worst one-day death toll in 25 years. Kouchner, 68, began a career of humanitarian activism as a physician in Biafra in 1968, later co-founding Médécins Sans Frontières and Médécins du Monde. Now his office is the situation room. In these excerpts from his interview with Newsweek's Tracy McNicoll, which don't appear in the magazine version, Kouchner discusses how to handle Moscow and Afghanistan, and why he is optimistic about Iraq:
The Anti-Cheney?
Michael Hirsh 8/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
During the hard-fought primaries last spring, Barack Obama swooped in from the campaign trail for a brief stop at the Senate hearings on Iraq. With Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker giving testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee, it was one of those rare moments when the spotlight panned back to Washington. And Obama didn't disappoint. Even with all the distractions of taking on Hillary Clinton, Obama asked one of the most penetrating questions of those two days of hearings: How much of an Iranian and Al Qaeda presence in Iraq would be acceptable before we would leave? Both Petraeus and Crocker seemed caught by surprise by this realpolitik reckoning, and Obama received kudos in the media for his smarts. Even Petraeus acknowledged that Obama was "exactly right" in saying that the most the United States could achieve was not to wipe out Al Qaeda entirely but to leave behind a "manageable situation."