George W. Bush

“The Afghanistan Papers” by Craig Whitlock is modeled on the Pentagon Papers, which charged that the Johnson administration systematically lied to Congress and the public about the Vietnam War. This book makes the same charge against the Bush and Obama administrations.

In her 2003 book Just War Against Terror, Jean Bethke Elshtain argued for a new paradigm for a just war: the fight against global terrorism, particularly terrorism perpetrated by followers of militant Islam. Twenty years after 9/11, this claim is due for revisiting.

Robert G. Morrison reflects on the fall of Afghanistan and the lack of religious freedom there.

As the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 looms, President Joe Biden has rushed to pull US troops out of Afghanistan. What are we to make of all of this?

Today we’re covering three scintillating pieces from Providence this week, one on the Israel and Hamas conflict, another on a new book about the Iraq War, and thirdly, one by yours truly on the New Whiggery.

Robert Draper’s book To Start a War details why the Bush administration made a gravely mistaken decision, despite having clearly met the jus ad bellum criteria of “right intention.”

The fact that Americans have shifted their focus back to domestic concerns isn’t abnormal or un-American. It is the predictable resurgence of the two domestically focused schools of the American foreign policy tradition.

In the almost-19 years since they dispatched their military to Afghanistan, US policymakers and the people they represent have learned, relearned, and unlearned several lessons.

Much of Carter Malkesian’s narrative about the Afghan war is spot-on, but he gets several key events wrong.