Understanding the Taliban

London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 17 · 9 September 2010, by Jonathan SteeleThe road from Kabul to Kandahar was once known as the Eisenhower highway. Built in the 1950s, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed peacefully for Afghan friendship, this...

What lessons can President Obama learn from LBJ

As the nation awaits President Obama’s decision about how to proceed with the war in Afghanistan, I found it very helpful to listen to President Lyndon Johnson deliberate with his advisors in 1964 and in the process acknowledge the power politics behind his...