Choices for the Super Power

Lots of folks are talking about this speech that Charles Krauthammer gave a few weeks ago at American Enterprise Institute. Looks like a great reflection on the choices "a commerical republic with unipolar global power" faces.

Iraqi scultpure for American Soldier

Here is a heartwarming gesture from the former sculpture of Saddam's busts. Story is included. (Hat tip: Sullivan)

Toppling Saddam a "happy error"--who's next?

The guys over at Powerline pointed out this article (use "laexaminer" for name and password) in the LA Times:

In his Sunday Los Angeles Times column ("The happy error"), Professor Gelernter advocates for the institutionalization of what he calls "the Bush method": "We publish an official list of tyrants we consider it our moral duty to overthrow. The implied next sentence is obvious: Give us an excuse and we'll do it. Play games with the U.N.; show us your true colors. Meanwhile, we might pray for the strange, accidental wisdom to make another providential mistake."

Victor D. Hanson: Weapons of Mass Hysteria

Hanson on recent developments in David Kay's report.

Bush Doctrine as the next Grand Strategy

According to this article from the Boston Globe, there is a historian of the Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis, who thinks that Bush ranks with the great foreign policy Presidents, in that he, like they, has shaped America's foreign policy beyond his years in office. Peter Schramm, over at No Left Turns, has a good overview. And, here is the article (originally in Foreign Affairs) that Gaddis launched this idea in, the basis for a forthcoming book.

UPDATE: Michael Barone throws in two bits in on Gaddis' thesis.

David Brooks on CIA's bad methodology

Brooks says that the problem at the CIA is its method, which aims at determining things scientifically, as if it were the weather service.

John Keegan: Inquiry into Intelligence is fruitless--always open to interpretation

Keegan's column

Lewis Doctrine on the Middle East

According to this article, Bernard Lewis' influence on the current American foreign policy in the Middle East is foundational. It contains a good overview of Lewis', famous historian of the Middle East, work and also a helpful timeline of US foreign policy.