In the Washington Post this New Year's Day, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke has a compelling op-ed piece ("While You Were At War...") on the dangerous and rising opportunity costs of the Bush administration's Iraq fixation. In a nutshell, Clarke argues that while President Bush and the U.S. national security apparatus have been focused like […]

As 2006 comes to a close, the Top 10 GOP Sound Bites chart has been turned upside down. In the wake of the Republicans' midterm election nightmare and the battering of the Iraq Study Group report, a bevy of GOP favorites have fallen off the list. Nowhere is the shake-up more evident than in the […]

There's an old saying it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. But as President Bush's press conference this morning shows, when its comes to saying whether or not the U.S. is winning or losing it Iraq, the White House just isn't playing the game very well. "I believe […]

While President Bush has declared that he "won't be rushed" into unveiling his new strategy for Iraq, the outlines are already clear. The twin pillars of the coming Bush approach appear to be a "surge" in U.S. force levels combined with the sacking of the generals opposed to it. Call it "Surge and Purge." Rumors […]

With the nation engaged in a critical debate about the path forward in (or out of) Iraq during this holiday season, we should never lose sight of the men and women in the U.S. armed forces who serve in our name. We are immensely privileged to live in a nation where a selfless few fight […]

Since he first stepped into the Oval Office, much has been made about George W. Bush as America's CEO, our first MBA President. In the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, the nation has been eagerly awaiting President Bush's now-delayed new strategy with the baited breath surrounding a major new product announcement. But as […]

If a period of days can be said to mark the end of the era, this past week almost surely heralded the demise of the Bush Doctrine. On Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group dealt a death blow to the Bush foreign policy's three pillars of no safe havens, preemptive war and democracy expansion. But it […]

The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library has been updated to include the findings of the Iraq Study Group. The document repository includes the ISG's final report as well as its executive summary. The Perrspectives Iraq Document Library also provides one-stop access to all the essential documents surrounding the Iraq war, pre-war intelligence and the hunt for […]

Just weeks removed from their midterm calamity, the leading lights of the right continue to suffer from rhetorical destruction. The entropy in Baghdad, the looming report of the Iraq Study Group and the last throes of a rudderless Bush administration have produced yet another bumper crop of classic Conservative Quotes of the Week: "We've been […]

With the midterms now in the rear view mirror, history will record that President Bush committed the defining gaffe of the 2006 campaign. Try as they might, conservatives failed to turn John Kerry's clumsy "stuck in Iraq" stumble into the moment that snatched Democratic defeat from the jaws of victory. As it turns out, it […]