David Ignatius's Blog, page 121

Bin Laden’s ambitious final plans

In the months before his death in May 2011, Osama bin Laden was discussing new gambits — from a truce with Pakistan to opportunistic alliances with jihadist groups spawned by the Arab Spring — so that he could focus on tipping what he called “the balance of fear” with his main enemy, the United States.Read full article >>

Iran changes its tune on peace talks

NEW YORKU.S. and Iranian officials have been insisting for years that they want to resolve the nuclear issue before discussing the sectarian wars raging across the Middle East. Not anymore. As the battles have escalated in recent months, so has talk about regional diplomacy.Read full article >>

Abe’s quest to revive Japan

It may not be obvious during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s choreographed visit to Washington this week, but he’s a study in contradictions. The dissonance actually helps explain how Abe is trying to revive a moribund Japan. Read full article >>

Can Turkey come to terms with its brutal past?

Where do I look for hope on this day that marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide? To the brave Turkish and Armenian human rights activists who have gathered in Istanbul this week to commemorate together the tragic events of 1915 and find a pathway to the future.Read full article >>

A tricky two-step in the Middle East

President Obama has been trying since his September 2013 address to the United Nations to convince Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies that the United States is truly committed to their security. So far, he hasn’t been very successful, but he’ll try again next month at a Camp David summit meeting. Read full article >>

A tricky two-step in the Middle East

President Obama has been trying since his September 2013 address to the United Nations to convince Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies that the United States is truly committed to their security. So far, he hasn’t been very successful, but he’ll try again next month at a Camp David summit meeting. Read full article >>

The Middle East’s sick state

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.Will the Middle East be as unstable 10 years from now as it is today? I posed that question this week to a class of students at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. About half answered yes — that things will be as bad or worse, no matter what the United States does.Read full article >>

Hillary Clinton is off to a fuzzy start

Hey, “everyday Americans,” what are you getting ready for? One couple is having a baby boy. Another couple wants to train the dog to stop eating the trash. Some people are starting new jobs, others retiring. And what about you, Hillary Clinton? “I’m running for president ” because “everyday Americans need a champion.”Read full article >>

The CIA gets a makeover

CIA Director John Brennan has just done what many of his predecessors at the agency surely dreamed of doing over the past few decades, which is to put the existing organizational chart in a shredder and redo it.Read full article >>

The delicate path ahead on Iran

There’s a buoyant sense at the White House this week — a feeling that a much-embattled President Obama has achieved the goal he set in January 2009 of engaging Iran on the basis of “mutual interest and mutual respect.” But like the dog who catches the car he’s been chasing, Obama must now worry about what to do next. Read full article >>