A primer for President Obama so that he is prepared for the next round of political upheavals after setting new standards for foreign policy incoherence and incompetence

Why the U.S. cannot correct its military blunders in Iraq despite its initial successful assault, and the latest American theories about the Iraqi resistance.

Those who are forever trying to figure out what is going on have a good opportunity for diagnostics based on what happens on election day and afterward. Here are a few of the key indicators that we should all be looking at.

The chilling reality of what Fallujah has become is only now seeping out, as the American military continues to block almost all access to the city, whether to reporters, its former residents, or aid groups like the Red Crescent Society.

Our addiction to opinion polls has done more than enhance the already unacceptable power of the media; it has also redirected our attention and efforts away from policy and toward trivial personality contests at a time when much is at stake.

Hidden in the confusion and jumbled mass of new violent outbreaks and conflicting pronouncements by all sides of the Iraqi conflict is an entirely new American military-political strategy that promises to wreak further havoc in the cities of Iraq.

The assault on the holy city of Najaf, with its attendant slaughter of combatants and civilians, its destruction of whole neighborhoods, and its threat to Shia holy cites is fraught with the possibility of another major military defeat.