Word: pakistans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Sanger's behind-the-scenes account of the Bush Administration's foreign policy is laced with scoops and secret conversations about a world spinning out of America's control. He tracks scientists in Pakistan trying to keep nuclear material out of al-Qaeda's hands; commandos at Fort Bragg blasting a Cabinet official for the lack of a strategy to get Osama bin Laden; and Condoleezza Rice telling George W. Bush, "I don't think you can invade another Muslim country ... even for the best of reasons." Sanger uncovers a sheaf of covert operations, like an effort to sabotage Iran...
...foreseeable future, the U.S. and its European allies will have less money to offer countries they want to influence. There's a lot in Obama's history and rhetoric to suggest he'd love a Marshall Plan--style effort to fight poverty and terrorism in failing states like Pakistan and Yemen. But finding the money is going to be much harder today than it was a few years back. And putting tough conditions on that money will be harder too, since poor countries can turn to China and get cash with fewer strings attached...
...other war, in Afghanistan. Obama wants to send tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops there, expand the Afghan army and dispatch boatloads of Western civilians to help build a governmental infrastructure that actually works. He also wants a high-octane diplomatic push across the border into Pakistan, which al-Qaeda and the Taliban have made their home base...
...still needs to define victory down. Afghanistan is bigger and more populous than Iraq, with harsher terrain and a literacy rate one-third as high. It has no real history of centralized government; a fictional border with Pakistan, which militants cross with ease; an economy based largely on drugs; and a leader who--although still popular in the U.S.--is widely considered a disaster at home...
...Throughout his campaign Obama correctly (if incompletely, considering the near civil war boiling over in neighboring Pakistan) identified Afghanistan as the central front in the war on terrorism. He has echoed the demands of commanders on the ground for more troops, and the Pentagon has tentatively agreed to send as many as 30,000 more U.S. soldiers to the country. That will nearly double the number of American troops on the ground, and bring the total number of foreign soldiers, including those of NATO nations, to about 92,000. (Iraq, which is smaller in both size and population...