America, time to get off the ledge (Dusts off notes from last three years.)   — Trump will start WWIII with China over Taiwan inauguration phone call, 2017 — Trump will start global economic war with China trade sanctions — Trump will start WWIII by withdrawing from NATO — Trump will start WWIII in […]

Iraq racks up another number one finish in a world category, this time in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) 2012 Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and killers go free. Iraq comes out on top, with 93 unsolved journalist murders last year. Freedom of the Press was one of the US’ […]

What do Saddam Hussein and Hillary Clinton have in common? They both fire employees who express dissent. My employer, Hillary Clinton and her Department of State, is working on firing me for writing a book about State’s failures in Iraq, and for expressing dissent here on this blog. I refuse to resign in protest. In […]

Memorandum To: All Media, Commentators and Pundits From: The Secretary Subject: Talking Points for Explaining Chaos in Iraq Thank you all for your patience since January 1, when PM Maliki turned 180 degrees from us/US and began unraveling Iraq. We were of course caught by surprise over these events, most of my staff being detailed […]

Emma Sky is a British academic who had the somewhat odd role of advising General Odierno when he commanded US forces in Iraq. I met the two of them several times in Iraq, and of course the standing joke was that they could not have been more different people. Odierno is a huge man, well […]

(This article, written by me, originally appeared on Foreign Policy.com) When wars end, usually there is a winner and a loser. Greeks burn down the city for the win; Trojans accept a dummy horse for the epic loss, like that. As we near the end of the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, and note the […]

I joined Ted Koppel, General (ret) Jack Keane, Bob Woodward and Brian Katulis on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to discuss the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and that country’s future. Koppel nailed it in his first question: As much as the world loathed Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein was the equalizing force in the […]

The bronze butt from the statue of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein toppled in Firdos Square after the US-led invasion in 2003 is to be auctioned in Britain for charity. Nigel “Spud” (really) Ely was working with media covering the fall of Baghdad at the time. He said the Marines gave him permission to remove […]

Just like fashion, if you hang on long enough, things come around full circle. Just like Qaddafi– 1980’s super villain freak, 2009 sticky handed friend of Condi Rice. Just as a reminder, in the 1980’s Saddam was our pal (shown here with a dapper Don Rumsfeld). And of course everybody’s favorite freedom fighters of the […]

Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister of Iraq, leads the largest political bloc in Iraq’s Parliament. He won the popular vote in Iraq’s last (likely last ever) election in March 2010, but was out-maneuvered for the Prime Minister’s job by al-Malaki and al-Sadr, brought together by the Iranians as the US sat back and just […]

The always prescient Iraq Oil Report has come up with yet another reason Iraq is unlikely to become a major oil exporter anytime soon: laws preventing oil workers from organizing have created a situation of work stoppages met with retaliation. This does not promote the extraction of petroleum. For those who still contend getting rid of […]

You spray and spray, but there’s always another one crawling across the floor when you flip on the light. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, said a famous philosopher. The advice never applied more than to the 1980’s hottest couple, Dapper Don Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein (note for young people: the US […]