A profile of Scott Guggenheim, an American fixer in Afghanistan, adviser to its President, his long-time friend Ashraf Ghani. The piece goes deep on the national and international politicking involved in handling Afghanistan’s response to the new US administration in 2017.
The journalist that wrote this story covering a political scandal surrounding the right wing, ex-Navy Seal, Governor of Missouri has an unusual angle – she went to the University of Oxford with his wife, and they were friends.
A review of a new book by Obama adviser Ben Rhodes (a speechwriter and Deputy National Security Adviser who was one of the few senior officials to remain in office throughout the whole presidency). The piece reflects on Obama’s style of leadership, the nature of power and governing, and the author’s own journey. It is also replete with anecdotes from behind the scenes of elite politics such as Rhodes discussing the TV show Entourage with David Cameron over after-state-dinner drinks at Buckingham Palace.
A former weapons inspector explains the challenges in working with defectors from regimes under investigation, looking at prominent Russian, North Korean and Iraqi defectors.
The story of Jared and Ivanka’s adventures in Washington.
A story suggesting that MI6 played a significant part in rendition programmes in collaboration with Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libyan regime and the US – a far more significant part than was previously known.
An assessment of the Trump administration’s assault on the Justice department, “the least tyrant-proof part of the government”, by a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution.
David Foster Wallace spent a week with the late Senator John McCain during his 2000 Republican presidential primary battle against George W. Bush for this perceptive and nuanced profile.
Matthew d’Ancona looks at the behind the scenes dynamics that have led to the referendum on leaving the EU.
Marib, a regional city in war-ravaged Yemen, lies “poised between horror and hope.”