The Obama Administration is flailing — and failing — in its eleventh-hour efforts to stop a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood next week. It’s as if Washington has woken in a panic after sleeping through its diplomatic alarm clock, and discovering that it has missed history’s bus. The Administration has dispatched delegations of …
Obama
Arab Spring Over, Islamists, Generals and Old Regimes Battle for Power From Tunisia to Syria
There are countless great sources for those following the Middle East’s political clock by the movement of its second- and minute-hands. But for those looking to track the movement of the hour-hand, there are few better options than the New York Review of Books tag-team of Hussein Agha and Rob Malley. The former Palestinian …
Israel’s ‘Diplomatic Tsunami’ Has Arrived, As Ambassadors Are Forced to Leave Turkey and Egypt
As a raucous mob of protestors on Friday stormed past passive Egyptian policemen, breaching the wall around Israel’s Cairo embassy and sacking the unsecured parts of the building, Israel turned for help to the Obama Administration. Looking to the U.S. to shield it from international opprobrium has become a familiar pattern for Israel …
Ten Years After 9/11, Is It Now Time to be Afraid of China?
As the commentaries, retrospectives and meditations pile up ten years after 9/11, expect quite a few in their closing paragraphs to look toward the next grand geo-political challenge facing the U.S. A decade of costly adventurism in the Middle East and Afghanistan, many will argue, distracted U.S. policy making from the new realities …
How 9/11 Provoked the U.S. to Hasten its Own Decline
During his first year in office, President George W. Bush was confronted by the key strategic challenge facing the United States in the new century, in an incident that began with the diversion of a U.S. aircraft — by Chinese fighter planes, which forced a U.S. Navy spy plane to land on the island of Hainan after a collision that …
Afghanistan’s Shrinking Security Forces: A Gaping Hole in Obama’s War Strategy
The military intervention in Afghanistan that began a month after the 9/11 attacks is the longest war in U.S. history, costing 1,750 American lives (and counting) and upward of $300 billion (and counting). And it’s becoming harder to believe Washington’s promises that the end is in sight. President Obama will, this year, withdraw …
How European Leaders Are in the Same Boat as Obama When it Comes to Debt
A few of you, or at least your 401(k)s, may have noticed that financial markets plummeted again on Thursday. European markets closed at or near two-year lows across the board and the Dow closed down more than 400 points.
Asian markets Friday morning opened in the tank: the Nikkei index tumbling more than 2.5%, Sydney down 3.5%, …
Prime Minister Obama: Would the U.S. Be Better Served by a Parliament?
Over at the GPS Blog, Fareed Zakaria asks a pointed and valuable question: “Does America need a Prime Minister?” Given the paralysis and farce that has gripped Washington in recent months, it’s worth considering. As Zakaria observes, presidential systems never resolve the “basic contest for legitimacy” between the power of the …
Why Iraq’s Terror Uptick Won’t Affect Decisions on U.S. Troops
The 32 terror attacks that killed 70 people across Iraq on Monday prompted a knee-jerk question in much of the media: Would or should the uptick in violence prompt a rethink of plans to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by New Year’s Eve?
The short answer is no, and the longer answer is probably not.
U.S. withdrawal from Iraq …
Could French Doubts On Afghanistan Influence Future Foreign Policy?
It may wind up proving to be nothing more than mere politics, but if the re-thinking now being expressed by French Socialists about the country’s engagement in Afghanistan is in earnest, it could have some serious consequences for the military operations Paris is already involved in—and any more than might be looming.
On …
U.S. Global Influence Tanks with the Economy
You say you want a revolution? Not now, mate, can’t you see we’re busy?
“It’s the economy, stupid,” was the focal message around which Bill Clinton organized his against-the-odds 1992 campaign victory over President George H.W. Bush. The incumbent had presided over the soft landing of the collapsing Soviet empire and driven Saddam …
Five Lessons the World Will Take From U.S. Economic Policy Gridlock
Washington may have cut an unlovable deal to avert a default on its debts, but U.S. and global stock markets are tanking anyway. That’s because the measures agreed Tuesday can’t reverse the slide of the U.S. economy — its fundamentals, to use a phrase beloved by politicians, are less than sound. So, what the world sees in America’s …
A ‘Dramatic Turnabout’ by Netanyahu on Peace Terms? Not Quite
With tens of thousands of young protestors on his streets in a social justice movement sparked by a housing crisis, some Israeli commentators have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s best hope for quelling a domestic “rebellion” lies in changing the subject to the question of peace with the Palestinians. But …