by Alex Evans | Aug 26, 2007 | Conflict and security
Unreal. On Thursday night’s Jon Stewart show in the US, one of the guests was Lt. Col. John Nagl – one of the leading US military experts on counter-insurgency and fourth generation warfare (link here). Following his appearance, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual – of which he’s a co-author – leapt into the top 100 books on Amazon. As John Robb on Global Guerrillas put it:
Wow, the Petraeus information operations media machine is amazing (and this is a great example). Nod of respect to the masterful way in which the Petraeus team has been able to influence the public’s perception of this war — the essence of which was a shift towards marketing the Iraq leadership as both competent and brilliant.
C.f. David Kilcullen doing the rounds of the blogosphere engaging the commentariat directly…
by Alex Evans | Aug 26, 2007 | North America
Well, that’s the rumour doing the round on various American blogs today, anyway. Here’s the gossip at US News:
The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he’s got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.
That said, Steven Benen is a naysayer on this one:
Color me skeptical. I don’t doubt that if Bush were willing to replace Gonzales, he’d probably pick someone who stood a good chance of being confirmed, but I think it’s probably an overstatement to suggest Chertoff is popular among lawmakers. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already called on Chertoff to resign.
And while it’s certainly true that Chertoff is untainted by Gonzales’ multiple DoJ scandals, he is tainted by his own DHS scandals, including the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, his “gut feeling” fiasco, and some controversial staffing decisions.
Regardless, that’s the rumor. Take it with a grain of salt.
by Alex Evans | Aug 26, 2007 | Cooperation and coherence, Middle East and North Africa
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Back when the US chaired the 2004 Sea Island G8, George Bush’s flagship proposal centred on the idea of a Greater Middle East Initiative, or GMEI (by way of a reminder, here’s what Brookings had to say about it then). At the time, there was heavy criticism – not only of of the GMEI’s optimistic hopes about democratisation, but also its dubious geographical assumptions: could Iran and Afghanistan really be lumped together with all the Arab countries?
But here’s the thing. If the idea of a Greater Middle East was clumsy, there’s still a case for coming up with some new geographical categories to reflect changed political realities in the region. In particular, it’s surprising that we still have no one category that draws together Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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by Alex Evans | Aug 26, 2007 | Conflict and security, Middle East and North Africa
The New York Times this morning has a leaked copy of a UN report due out on Monday, with news of another record opium crop in Afghanistan – “led by a staggering 45 per cent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand”. But, the NYT goes on:
Loren Stoddard [the head of the US Agency of International Development’s agriculture program in Afghanistan], who helped Wal-Mart move into Central America in his previous posting, predicted that poppy production had become so prolific that the opium market was flooded and prices were starting to drop. “It seems likely they’ll have a rough year this year,” he said, referring to the poppy farmers. “Labor prices are up and poppy prices are down. I think they’re going to be looking for new things.”
