New Republic, Feb. 19 A piece suggests that a surge in the Iraqi provinces might work more effectively than a surge in Baghdad. On the ground in Ramadi, Lawrence F. Kaplan finds U.S. troops cooperating with local sheikhs to track down insurgents—a method commanders in Baghdad never suggested. “There hasn’t been any coherent guidance,” says one retired Army officer. “So, instead of a symphony, what you have is a collection of jazz bands.” Without a consistent strategy, the military must confront the question, “What if there were one true path all along?”… Democratic presidential candidate and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack faces an uphill battle, a profile posits. He’s banking on an Iowa victory to pull him into the national spotlight: Then, he says, people will begin to ask, “Which of the two or three remaining candidates has the best chance of winning the states in the Midwest, the Southeast, the Mountain West? And I think there’s no question I would have the best chance.”— C.B.
Time, Feb. 19 A cover piece profiling Afghan warlord Haji Bashar Noorzai asks: “Does the potential cost to the battle against terrorism in Afghanistan outweigh the benefit to the war on drugs?” Noorzai worked with the United States to stabilize Afghanistan and even delivered truckloads of stashed weaponry to the American military. But after meeting with federal agents in New York to discuss the issues facing Afghanistan, he was arrested for conspiring to smuggle narcotics into the United States. His lawyer says Noorzai “wanted to be an ally, not an enemy,” but a U.S. official deemed him the “Pablo Escobar of Afghanistan.”… A piece considers the twilight of Tony Blair’s career as prime minister; he plans to vacate 10 Downing Street after attending this summer’s G-8 and European Union summits. But his legacy may be marred by “a ‘corrosive lack of trust’ that is undermining the credibility of the political system,” especially after rumors surfaced regarding honors-for-pounds deals in Blair’s Labor Party.— P.G.
Economist, Feb. 8 An editorial predicts that despite reassurances from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “Iran and America are heading for a collision.” Without any more elections to worry about, George Bush is likely looking for ways to define his presidency. But if he’s thinking about attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, the editors write, he should reconsider. It’s unclear that such measures would help and almost guaranteed they would hurt: “It might very well rally support behind a regime that is at present not conspicuously popular at home, emboldening it to retaliate inside Iraq, against Israel and perhaps against the United States itself.”… A piece responds to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ suggestion that the music industry make all music available free from digital rights management technology. The author supports the move: Apple “can afford to embrace open competition in music players and online stores. Consumers would gravitate to the best player and the best store, and at the moment that means Apple’s.”— C.B.
New York Times Magazine, Feb. 11 An article examines the growing discomfort in the medical community with using lethal injection as an execution method. Horror stories abound: One convict took 34 minutes to die after the execution team injected the cocktail into soft tissue instead of a vein. Doctors aren’t always present at executions; for many “nonmedical” personnel who administer the injections, the day of the execution is “the first time probably in their life they have picked up a syringe,” one doctor testified. … A piece chronicles the years a former fugitive spent on the lam. Orlando Boquete, who was sentenced to 50 years in prison for crimes he did not commit, escaped from a prison in 1985 and avoided capture for a decade. At one point, police showed up at his house in Miami’s Little Havana after receiving a tip that he was hiding there: “,’If you’re looking for this Boquete, why don’t you bring a picture of him?’ Boquete says he demanded.”— C.B.
New York, Feb. 12 A cover piece chronicles the new generation gap: While parents worry about the security of their personal information, their teenage and 20something children share their most intimate moments (and photographs) on the Internet, particularly Facebook and MySpace. Their willingness to broadcast personal details shows that they may be “the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. … Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.”… A column proclaims today the age of the lame duck, “in which the discredited and obsolete and totally over shuffle around in the limelight for years after their sell-by dates.” Such lame ducks include staling icons Bill Gates and Jay Leno, the baby boomers, and the war in Iraq. Even the United States looks to be declining “the way Britain did in the late-nineteenth century.”— P.G.
Newsweek, Feb. 12 A piece analyzes President Bush’s affinity for comparing himself to President Harry Truman. Truman was unpopular during the last years of his presidency, with approval rating as low as 22 percent. But “history showed he was right,” Bush told a group of Senate Democrats in December. The 43rd president “wants to be remembered for creating a new and effective framework for fighting the war on terror,” the author writes, “just as Truman did for the cold war.” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., remains skeptical: “Harry Truman had allies.”… A piece examines power relations in Iraq’s south following a battle that pitted American and Iraqi forces against members of a Shiite death cult in Najaf. As violence escalates in the region, millenarian organizations like Soldiers of Heaven are gaining converts: “The decrease of the things people need—electricity, water, a salary, peace of mind—makes them want to find something like a miracle,” says a former member of the Iraqi Governing Council.— C.B.
Weekly Standard, Feb. 12 A cover piece traces Barack Obama’s literary trajectory from the initial dud Dreams of My Father to the best-selling The Audacity of Hope. The author praises the honest richness of Dreams but laments Hope: “In this most perilous age, when our great country strives for direction in a world of crisscrossing riptides and dangerous undertow, we have lost a writer and gained another politician. It’s not a fair trade.”… A piece envisions a “Treaty of the Democratic Peace” that could, like the European Union or NATO, use the allure of membership in an influential international body to bait states into staying democratic. The treaty would limit membership to participatory governments and capitalize on the theory that “mature, liberal democracies … might wish to collaborate on at least some issues in a global forum that excludes the worst human rights abusers, tyrants, and authoritarians from the deliberations.” Unlike the United Nations, this club would force members to reapply regularly, forgoing “toothless” threats of expulsion.— P.G.
The New Yorker, Feb. 12 A profile of public relations specialist Howard Rubenstein calls him “ubiquitous, trusted, a kind of gentle fixer for those who run New York.” Rubenstein’s understated style makes him less a “flack” than “a master of relationships, of making connections; he is a kind of lubricant of the city’s gears.” When New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch wanted to negotiate a cease-fire with Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman, Rubenstein played go-between. “He’s just like a magician,” Lord Richard Rogers, an architect, said. “He makes things disappear.” Rubenstein came to Rogers’ rescue when his ties to a group with pro-Palestinian sympathies threatened to cost him billions. … A piece discusses Sen. Joe Lieberman’s precarious politics. Unapologetically hawkish on Iraq, yet socially liberal as ever, the “independent Democrat” hangs in the balance between both parties—a lonely existence for the one-time VP candidate. “I’m the Lorax,” he says. “I’m saving that one tree.”— C.B.
