[A-List] The U.S. Army speaks up for Hamas ...and Obama's War (Iraq) - Thomas E. Ricks

[Leighm]

 From Foreign Policy...

(Also, Abu Aardvark is officially a member of FP's writing staff:
Why Aardvark? <http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/node/10725>)

Thomas E. Ricks, formerly WaPo, now Foreign Policy magazine:

The Army War College chose this week to release a report that has some 
surprisingly kind words for Israel's foes in the Gaza Strip:

"HAMAS' political and strategic development has been both ignored and 
misreported in Israeli and Western sources which villainize the group, 
much as the PLO was once characterized as an anti-Semitic terrorist 
group," writes Sherifa Zuhur, a research professor at the War College's 
Strategic Studies Institute. "Negotiating solely with the weaker 
Palestinian party-Fatah-cannot deliver the security Israel requires. . . 
. The underlying strategies of Israel and HAMAS appear mutually 
exclusive . . . . Yet each side is still capable of revising its desired 
endstate and of necessary concessions to establish and preserve a 
long-term truce, or even a longer-term peace."

Among her timely if impolitic recommendations: "Israel and the United 
States need to abandon their policies of non-negotiation and 
non-communication with HAMAS."

With linkage to pertinent docs: http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/node/10703

Also notable:

Obama's War

News flash for the president-elect: All our troops are combat troops. It 
isn't like some American soldiers stroll around Iraq unarmed. Nor do the 
insurgents inquire about the troops' MOS (military occupational 
specialties) before detonating an IED. Indeed, I feel safer in Iraq 
accompanying an infantry unit on foot patrol than I do while riding in a 
convoy of transport soldiers, who are much more likely to get popped by 
a roadside bomb. So his promise to get "combat troops" out of Iraq in 
the next 16 months is a phrase that means much less than it appears to.

At any rate, I bet Obama is wrong: I think we are going to have tens of 
thousands of troops in Iraq -- mentoring, advising and engaged in combat 
-- for many years to come.

The recent Status of Forces Agreement also means less than it seems. For 
example...

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/node/14892