If Mansour is dead it will provoke a crisis inside the Taliban. by Bruce Riedel

If Mansour is dead it will provoke a crisis inside the Taliban.

Bruce Riedel

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There's plenty of room for finger-pointing for the debacle in Iraq. If it's a problem that the Iraqi military is broken at its core, then there's no point in sending more Humvees and Apaches.

iraq broken military

Barack Obama's discovering what a nightmare dealing with hostage problems is - a discovery previously made by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, i don't see a lot of room for change in American policy.

change discovery rooms

Pakistan's political leadership needs to make a clear choice to fight the Taliban decisively, not with half measures, the burden is on Prime Minister Sharif to show he can unite the country to defend its children.

leadership country children

The problem with the drone is it's like your lawn mower. You've got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.

mowing drones problem

I am very cynical that Donald Trump is going to care about the human rights of a Saudi journalist, donald Trump is not going to take action.

We could very easily see ourselves in a military confrontation in... by Bruce Riedel

We could very easily see ourselves in a military confrontation in the near future.

In this highly tense situation, we've now poured gasoline on the fire by removing the Iran nuclear deal, which provided some semblance of constraint.

Normally in this scenario. by Bruce Riedel

Normally in this scenario.

Prospects for the Afghan peace process remain poor. The Taliban leadership, including the new commander, Mullah Akhundzada, believe military victory is only a matter of time.

It's a big blow to IS, he has been an important figure going back to a decade ago during Abu Musaib Zarqawi's era in creating what became ISIS.

It is a game changer in this sense: there were those who debated whether the Islamic State would stay focused local – or go global. I think that debate's over now.

With neither the United States nor Gulf Arab states willing to deploy their ground troops and the Iraqi armed forces in disarray, Iraq has little choice but to turn to the militias, the flaw in the coalition strategy for the last year is weak ground forces. Given the constraints on the U.S. and its Arab allies, the only viable ground force option is Iranian-led Shi'ite Iraqis.

The flaw in the coalition strategy for the last year is weak ground forces. Given the constraints on the U.S. and its Arab allies, the only viable ground force option is Iranian-led Shi'ite Iraqis, of course this will alienate the Sunnis -- both in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia -- but Baghdad has no other serious option.

Hadi was a unique figure who not only tolerated drone strikes, he welcomed them, i don't think we're going to have that kind of enthusiastic partner in the foreseeable future.

The summit of the nine Arab leaders is a clear accomplishment as is the backing for the truce in Yemen. But these accomplishments have come at the cost of the fist bump.

It is really remarkable how he has gone out of his way to defend Saudi Arabia.

He probably focused on how badly Saudi Arabia felt because Saudi Arabia is the last thing he heard in the conversation, and The President is aware that because of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi incident everything that the US does with Saudi Arabia is under the microscope.