On the newsstand: The Atlantic

It's not on newsstand just yet but the November issue of The Atlantic promises to be good reading. Leslie Gelb (Pres. Emeritus of CFR) and (I swear I'm not making this up) Anne-Marie Slaughter argue that the US needs to go back to declaring wars:

But Iraq is only the latest in a long line of ill-considered and ill-planned American military adventures. Time and again in recent decades the United States has made military commitments after little real debate, with hazy goals and no appetite for the inevitable setbacks. Bill Clinton, having inherited a mission in Somalia to feed the starving, ended up hunting tribal leaders and trying to nation-build. Ronald Reagan dispatched the Marines to Lebanon saying stability there was a "vital interest," only to yank them out sixteen months later, soon after a deadly terrorist attack on the Marine barracks. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson settled us slowly into a war intended to prevent another "domino" from falling to communism, but in a manner that tore the nation apart and ultimately led to defeat. Too often our leaders have entered wars with unclear and unfixed aims, tossing away American lives, power, and credibility before figuring out what they were doing and what could be done.

Gelb and Slaughter want to rein in the executive branch:

We propose a new law that would restore the Framers' intent by requiring a congressional declaration of war in advance of any commitment of troops that promises sustained combat. The president would be required to present to Congress an analysis of the threat, specific war aims, the rationale for those aims, the feasibility of achieving them, a general sense of war strategy, plans for action, and potential costs. For its part, Congress would hold hearings of officials and nongovernmental experts, examine evidence of the threat, assess the objectives, and explore the drawbacks of the administration's proposal. A full floor debate and vote would follow.

In the case of a sudden attack on the United States or on Americans abroad, the president would retain his power to repel that attack and to strike back without a congressional declaration. But any sustained operation would trigger the declaration process. In other words, the president could send troops into Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda and punish the Taliban in response to 9/11. But if he planned to keep troops there to unseat the government and transform the country, he would need a congressional declaration. (Without one, funding for troops in the field would be cut off automatically.)

In "The Agenda" John Sellers lays down the odds for the Nobel Peace Prize. Seems a little dated because a frontrunner is the leader of the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko. He does confess that an organization or individual associated with Tsunami relief will probably win.

In a timely piece the infamous Richard Clarke wonders why the administration has been unable to secure the fatherland...I mean homeland despite talking it up all the time. Honestly it is not his best. Clarke allows his hatred of the Bushies to get in the way and he just throws things up against the wall to see what sticks. W doesn't like spending money domestically! Uh what about that Medicare boondogle and those nightmarish highway bills. The NRA is running the country so terrorists are buying guns! So we're too liberal on gun laws? See how well another Patriot Act does in Congress, the current law would not make it to the Oval Office much less one placing restrictions on guns.

Finally the quintessential New New Journalist William Langewiesche turns in a typically mammoth piece on A. Q. Khan the father of the Islamic Bomb.