Instead of simply following the president, Congress must now lead as well. As the only institution directly able to hold the president’s feet to the fire on Afghanistan policy (short of the American people in 2012), Congress must hold hearings that pose difficult questions to the president’s advisers. It must demand far more specific and detailed answers than the president offered Tuesday about his exit strategy for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the benchmarks that he will use to define success on the ground.

Michael Cohen, on moving forward in Afghanistan

The “caravillas”—a local portmanteau word for mobile villas—were built in a crash program to serve as temporary housing for the Gaza evacuees, following their forced removal from their former homes. Although the government promised to put their resettlement high on its agenda, move them as quickly as possible to permanent housing, and conclude the “disengagement” process, they’re still there. And today, they’re as good a barometer as Israel has for what would happen in an evacuation of the West Bank’s most intransigent settlers. If the debate today is about where to freeze settlement construction, the debate tomorrow could be about how to clear them, how traumatic it would be, and how quickly they could resettle and reintegrate into Israeli society. The former Gaza settlers at Nitzan show that settlers, albeit with difficulty, can be resettled.

Lessons in resettlement from Israel

Connolly's First Take on Obama

comedycentral:

Jon Stewart’s interview with Maziar Bahari, the Iranian Newsweek reporter who was imprisoned and interrogated after appearing in a Daily Show segment with Jason Jones.

Follow the link to watch the original segment.

Jon Stewart Interviews Imprisoned Newsweek Reporter Maziar Bahari | Indecision Forever | Comedy Central

People always look at this and say, “Where’s America?” Niall Ferguson provides the answer, here.

Programming Reminder

comedycentral:

This is probably a good opportunity to mention that Newsweek’s Maziar Bahari will be Jon Stewart’s guest on Monday’s Daily Show.

The bureau estimates about 20 Somali-Americans have left the Minneapolis area in the past couple of years to fight in Somalia. Why do they go? The new Justice case focuses in part on a handful recruiters who have enticed the young men by glorifying the scene at the Somalia training camp. One of the recruiters, Cabdulaahi Faarax (who, according to the affidavit, was last seen on Oct. 8 at the U.S.-Mexico border on his way to Tijuana) had told young co-conspirators (including the confidential informant) that they could experience “true brotherhood” by going to fight in Somalia. Not only would the recruits have “fun” and “get to shoot guns,” Faarax also told the informant how he also got to go to Kenya and marry two women.

The one thing Faarax apparently didn’t mention was that the young recruits might end up with their bodies smashed to bits—leaving behind only one finger so their remains could be identified to their loved ones by the FBI.

Isikoff, on Somali recruiting.

And they Looked Out, Liked Returned Crusoes, on the Manufactured World

PHOTO: Jason Lee/Reuters-Landov

Here’s Begley, on Copenhagen talks:

Seeing the failure of Copenhagen as something short of Armageddon is not contrarianism for contrarianism’s sake. Just to be clear, if the world had agreed on what quantity of greenhouse-gas emissions to cut by when—on “targets and timetables,” in the prevailing argot—it would have launched us down a path that could keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, relative to pre-industrial levels, which many climate scientists see as a point of no return. The meltdown of global climate talks is therefore a setback to efforts to avert the worst consequences of global warming. For instance, scientists foresee a massive rise in sea levels that would inundate coastal megalopolises from Shanghai to New York, more frequent droughts and floods, a loss of glaciers that provide fresh water to tens of millions of people in India and China, lethal heat waves, and climate shifts that are as dangerous to farming as loss of sea ice is to polar bears. Already, yields of wheat in northern India have fallen due to climate change—not a good thing in a country that is currently importing grain to feed itself.

But for months there have been ample warning signs that the Copenhagen meeting was headed for a cliff. The Senate wasn’t going to pass climate legislation in time, so other countries, getting déjà vu all over again, had no reason to believe the U.S. would abide by any emissions cuts the U.S. pledged in Copenhagen. Remember, the U.S. signed but never ratified the Kyoto climate treaty; to the rest of the world, America’s climate promises aren’t credible even with Obama in office.

Fallows on How We All Screwed Up Coverage of Obama's China Trip

The Year the World Really Changed

givemesomethingtoread:

Forget the fall of the iron curtain: the events of ‘79 matter more.

Niall Ferguson’s really good in this one.