Q&A: Gen. David Petraeus on Leaving Iraq | Newsweek Iraq War

Deployments and Diplomacy
Henry Kissinger 10/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and General McChrystal's argument that his forces are inadequate for the mission, Obama will be blamed for the dramatic consequences. If he accepts the recommendation, his opponents may come to describe it, at least in part, as Obama's war. If he compromises, he may fall between all stools—too little to make progress, too much to still controversy. And he must make the choice on the basis of assessments he cannot prove when he makes them.
Bundy’s Blunders
Jonathan Alter 10/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
We're told that this month's marathon policy meetings about Afghanistan mark a fateful moment in the Obama presidency—a fork in the road. But that's only true if the president sharply escalates the number of U.S. ground forces. As everyone learned the hard way in Iraq, getting out is a helluva lot harder than getting in. If, by contrast, Obama chooses to limit U.S. involvement to fighting Al Qaeda, and stops short of a commitment to protect civilians from the Taliban, he has more options for a midcourse correction. That wouldn't be as fateful. (Click here to follow Jonathan Alter)
Homecoming
9/29/2009 12:00:00 AM
In the eight years after September 11, and especially during the Bush administration's first term, Americans became all to accustomed to a diet of orange alerts, sensational terror arrests, and breathless press conferences announcing the thwarting of yet another serious plot. But months and years down the line, it often emerged that such plots may not have represented such grave threats after all: terrorism suspects were charged with less serious offenses or released altogether; plotters turned out to have little or no capacity to launch attacks; and, often, when juries did convict, it emerged that entire conspiracies were reliant on the helping hand of undercover law-enforcement agents.
The Way Out of Afghanistan
Fareed Zakaria 9/12/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union, and other nations have invested massively in stabilizing the country over the past eight years, and they will not—and should not—abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But it's also time for the Obama administration to get real about the country. There continues to be a large gap between the goals being outlined by the administration and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands more troops but rather by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.
COVER STORY: INTERNATIONAL
Learning to Live With Radical Islam
Fareed Zakaria 2/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
Pakistan's Swat valley is quiet once again. Often compared to Switzerland for its stunning landscape of mountains and meadows, Swat became a war zone over the past two years as Taliban fighters waged fierce battles against Army troops. No longer, but only because the Pakistani government has agreed to some of the militants' key demands, chiefly that Islamic courts be established in the region. Fears abound that this means women's schools will be destroyed, movies will be banned and public beheadings will become a regular occurrence.
INTERNATIONAL
Afghanistan Is Not Vietnam
Frederick W. Kagan 2/11/2009 12:00:00 AM
Just three months ago, Afghanistan was the "good" war. It was, according to all the conventional wisdom, the "real" central front in the war on terror, the war we had to win, the place to fight Al Qaeda, and the war we should have been focusing on all along. Nothing much has changed in Afghanistan since Barack Obama won the election, but conventional wisdom is swinging fast to the opposite viewpoint. Opinion makers on the left and the right are discovering that Afghanistan is hard to fix, that Al Qaeda is really in Pakistan, and that the "good war" might not be so good after all.