Paul Krugman
1/10/2011

Krugman says he is not surprised by the Arizona shooting. He cites an upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing, the frenzied crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, and a Department of Homeland Security internal report in April 2009 that warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence. The calls for violence in political rhetoric has contributed to this, and this act should not be treated as an isolated event. Decent people should shun those that are purveyors of hate, and it is up to GOP leaders to accept the reality of what’s happening and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric, otherwise this is just the beginning of the violence.

Krugman is a New York Times columnist.

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Matthew Kaminski
12/22/2010

The surge in Afghanistan is a wager that we can make the country a less violent and more stable base for America. Kaminski notes that America’s forces aren’t leaving anytime soon and probably not in this lifetime. Where the US military has gone in robustly, the Taliban has folded. The Afghan government’s shortcomings feed the insurgency. President Karzai squandered nine years, but the Taliban is hated. Only a tenth of Afghans tell pollsters they prefer them, and their sympathy is often as much practical as ideological. Afghans want the state to protect and serve them. In the many places it fails, the Taliban steps into the gap. Kaminski argues that giving up prematurely on our Afghan surge could make the fantasy of failure real.

Kaminski is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.

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Anne Applebaum
12/21/2010

In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko was “elected” to a fourth term as president after a violent crackdown by his regime. The violence, says Applebaum, was evidence of Lukashenko’s weakness. Truly popular leaders do not need to resort to bloodshed and beatings to intimidate their opponents and shut down communication. Lukashenko rejected a deal with the European Union that involved Belarus receiving, among other things, more open borders in exchange for free elections. He did, however, sign an oil deal with Moscow. This represents the decline of the West. The United States and Europe are “out of money and out of ideas” and can not offer any “carrots” as attractive as Russian oil.

Applebaum is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign affairs.

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Matthew Kaminski
12/16/2010

Pakistan is becoming more like Afghanistan, only with a more advanced economy and nuclear weapons, writes Kaminski. The idea that Islamabad’s leaders can control the Taliban is probably a necessary fiction, but the reality is that many extremists have slipped their leash. Pakistan’s military has yet to show that it wants to–or that it can–control the Islamist wave. Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander in Afghanistan, certainly has contingency plans for Pakistan that go beyond extra doses of drones or diplomacy. Putting American boots in Waziristan is an obvious idea. But, Kaminski concludes, this is unappealing, as the fallout in Pakistan would be hard to predict. So for the moment America gets to pretend that Pakistan can do this on its own.

Kaminski is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.

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Selig S. Harrison and John H. Cushman
12/13/2010

The North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island was just the latest act in a long series of naval clashes between the two Koreas resulting from a dispute over the Yellow Sea boundary imposed by the United Nations forces. The authors say to end the dispute the United States should redraw the sea boundary, called the Northern Limit Line, moving it slightly to the south. They show how President Obama has this authority as a result of a 1950 United Nations Security Council resolution. This would help defuse tensions and keep the peace and can help lead to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Harrison, the author of “Korean Endgame,” is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy. Cushman, a retired Army lieutenant general, commanded the United States-South Korean First Corps Group from 1976 to 1978.

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David B. Rivkin Jr. and Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky
12/9/2010

International law classifies pirates as “enemies” of all mankind, but developed countries have been reticent to try and convict pirates, choosing instead to funnel suspects to Kenya for legal action. But the Kenyan government is running out of funding for the large number of prosecutions, and the international community needs to develop a comprehensive framework for dealing with piracy. The authors suggest an international tribunal by the United Nations as a long-term solution, and they believe that Washington should be a legal and military leader in the effort to secure the freedom of the seas.

Rivkin, a Washington lawyer, served in the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Ramos-Mrosovsky is a New York-based attorney whose practice focuses on international and federal litigation.

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Edward Luttwak
11/30/2010

Luttwak considers the means by which the government in Pyongyang survives. China props up the Kim regime, South Korea is feckless, and the US is tied down militarily. He argues that nothing is achieved with the North by issuing solemn warnings and indignant declarations; mere words do not impress the hard-bitten North Korean regime. But former President Carter has done us a great service. As usual, we need only do the exact opposite of what he recommends, this time by rejecting talks with the Kim dictatorship until (at a minimum) it makes full amends for its most recent crimes. Nothing will be lost since all past negotiations have proven futile, and the US will avoid rewarding North Korean aggression.

Luttwak, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace” (Belknap, 2002).

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Richard Cohen
11/30/2010

While abhorrent in many respects, this week’s Wikilinks leak serves as a stark contrast and counterbalance to President Bush’s book, “Decision Points.” The war with Iraq predictably handed influence in that country to Iran and thereby rearranged the region’s political balance. The various Arab governments and our own remain involved in a far messier debate over how to proceed than is evidenced in the former president’s memoir, which strains credulity in the harsh light of day.

Cohen is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on domestic and foreign politics.

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Edward Jay Epstein
11/26/2010

A UN investigation may soon implicate Hezbollah in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, says Epstein. If the agents of Syria or Iran are ultimately named by the UN’s special tribunal, the half-decade delay in justice for Hariri’s murder may be little more than a prelude. Syria and Hezbollah, which both possess the power to destroy Lebanon’s fragile government, will almost certainly denounce such a finding and shift the blame–as Hezbollah has already suggested–to their convenient bete noire: Israel. Such allegations and recriminations, meaningless as they may be, could drag on for another half-decade, if not longer.

Epstein, an investigative reporter, is currently completing a book on the 9/11 Commission.

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