When It Comes to Iran, Don’t Follow the Iraq Playbook Susan Shaer, Executive Director of WAND and Win Without War co-chair February 17, 2015 | Huffington Post I observe the recent Washington conversation on Iran nuclear negotiations with a creepy sense of déjà vu. It makes me recall the congressional debate — if it can really be called that — in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Then, as now, political posturing and the embrace of arbitrary deadlines obscured the facts and drove our country into disastrous war with repercussions still playing out today. Before we get to that, it is important to establish the core points that the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with when it comes to international diplomacy with Iran:… Read More ›

Constitution Check: Is the President actually giving up some of his war powers? By Lyle Denniston February 17, 2015 | Yahoo News President Obama has won significant praise, from scholars, pundits and some politicians, for his action last week in recommending limits on a new move to wage military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He proposed a three-year time limit on that authority, and a lack of permission for extensive use of U.S. ground troops against ISIL. He also asked Congress explicitly to repeal a 2002 resolution that had authorized the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. As the President conceded, however, he explicitly declined to ask for repeal of the 9/11 authorization – the warmaking power that Congress had authorized against the… Read More ›

Confronting the Islamic State: An Assessment of U.S. Strategic Options Policy Report by J. Dana Stuster and Bill French Foreword by Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, USA (Ret.) February 2015 The National Security Network (NSN) is pleased to release a new policy report,Confronting the Islamic State: An Assessment of U.S. Strategic Options. The report, which features a foreword by NSN Senior Advisor Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), reframes the debate on U.S. strategy in Iraq and Syria. NSN Policy Analysts Dana Stuster and Bill French analyze the full field of strategies to counter the Islamic State proposed by experts and outline a new approach to combat it. To read the full report, click here.  Confronting the Islamic State categorizes the various strategic proposals into four camps: those… Read More ›