Word: afghanistanism
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...absolutely going to get a health-care-reform bill passed this year. No question about it," Senator John Kerry told me recently. We were in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly festivities, talking about the frustrations the Obama Administration is facing overseas, especially in Afghanistan, when I changed the subject and asked about health care. Kerry's certainty led to an unexpected thought: Barack Obama may well be having an easier time handling domestic issues than foreign ones. Indeed, he may be headed for the most successful domestic-policy year by a Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson...
...frustration about this when he spoke to the U.N.: "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world," he said, "cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone." (See pictures of a photographer's personal journey in Afghanistan...
Ironically, several of the President's most important initiatives - in Israel, Iran and Afghanistan - have been mugged by democracy (or the pretense of democracy, in the latter two cases). In Israel, democracy is very real, but the elections resulted in a right-wing coalition that has refused to freeze illegal settlements in Palestinian territories. This intransigence has led to a diplomatic stall across the region. The Palestinians seem as inept as ever, unable to present a united front for negotiations. The Syrians, who always seem almost-ready to make peace, seem less almost-ready than they did a few months...
...stopped pursuing the European antimissile defense system, which should please the Russians - and he has reminded the Chinese that we face a common enemy in central Asian Islamic extremism. But that doesn't guarantee either country will be willing to get tougher on the Iranians. (See pictures of Afghanistan's Kunar province...
...biggest foreign policy problem Obama faces is Afghanistan. Indeed, it is an issue that has divided his foreign policy team for the first time. I'm told the Secretaries of both State and Defense and National Security Adviser Jim Jones warily favor the military's request for more troops. But Vice President Joe Biden and, perhaps, the President remain skeptics - and rightly so, since any military policy depends on whether the Afghan government can regain some credibility after the flagrantly corrupt August elections. If Hamid Karzai limps into a second term but does not make some major reforms - like removing...