David Cameron cares as deeply about college hoops as Barack Obama takes an interest in English county cricket. Yet it’s a safe bet that the briefing documents Britain’s Prime Minister studied on his March 13 charter flight to …
Obama
Must-Reads from Around the World: March 13, 2012
Must-Reads from Around the World: March 6th, 2012
Fleeing Syria — Fearing for their lives, hundreds of Syrians are fleeing their country, crossing its western border into neighboring Lebanon, the Associated Press reports (via the Guardian). Urging the U.S. to intervene in the …
Israelis Like What They Heard in Obama’s AIPAC Speech
Israeli television went live with President Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday night. It amounted to theater here, high drama framed by, rather than the proscenium, a kind of structural …
What Iran’s Inspection Rebuff Says About Prospects for Nuclear Diplomacy
To those mesmerized by the drumbeat for war with Iran, Tehran’s rejection on Tuesday of an International Atomic Energy Agency request to visit a sensitive military site signaled grim prospects for diplomacy resolving the nuclear …
Must-Reads from Around the World: February 21, 2012
Ballot for One – Yemen heads to the polls on Tuesday to replace long-time ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh. Interestingly, the only candidate on the ballot is Vice President Abd-Rabbua Mansour Hadi, who took power after Saleh stepped …
“It would be misguided for the United States to count on exploiting possible cleavages within the Iranian leadership.”
Why Did Merkel Endorse Sarkozy’s French Presidential Re-Election Bid?
How odd is this picture? The leader of one country visits the head of state of a neighboring nation to explicitly support the host’s uphill re-election plans — despite the political and diplomatic problems that may arise if …
Must Reads from Around the World: Feb. 6, 2012
Global Briefing, Jan. 24, 2012: POTUS, Problems and Progressive Politics
POTUS Probs — Hot on the heels of Fareed Zakaria’s TIME cover analysis of the U.S. president’s international agenda, Foreign Policy‘s Rosa Brooks delves into whether there’s an emerging Obama doctrine. The conclusion: “President …
Can A European Ban on Iranian Oil Push Tehran to Fold Its Nuclear Program?
With its agreement in principle to impose an embargo on Iranian oil, the European Union has taken a big step closer to the U.S. stand to force Tehran to renounce its suspected military nuclear develop program. But while it seems …
The Bonn Conference: Can Afghanistan Be Saved Without Pakistan On Board?
It’s rarely a good sign these days when a summit gets referenced by the city that hosts it: Kyoto is now synonymous with the international community’s failures dealing with climate change; Oslo has become another watchword for …
Despite Downed U.S. Drone Claims, Iran War Talk May Be Overblown
Anyone cut off from all news media for the six months before December 2011 could be forgiven for imagining we’re in the opening stages of a war between the West and Iran. Sunday’s headline was Iran’s claim to have captured a …