Analysis & Commentary
50 US Experts Implore Obama to Press Syria Harder
Around 50 US-based experts on Middle East policy and strategy signed an open letter to President Barack Obama this week imploring him to demonstrate greater leadership on the Syria crisis.
A Bad Idea For A Photo Op
President Obama plans to make history Thursday by chairing a special, summit-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
A Blow to Obama’s Russia ‘Reset’
Last week's International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iranian nuclear activities has understandably ruffled feathers in American and European foreign-policy circles.
A Case Built on Irrationality
The Uighur saga nicely captures all the irrationality and hypocrisy of our counterterrorism approach.
A Defense of Rashad Hussain
As Fox News notes, President Obama's newly-named envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Rashad Hussain, "is at the center of a controversy." He is not only beset by criticism for a quote he has admitted to making about the prosecution of Sami al-Arian in 2004 (at the age of twenty-four) but also by insinuations and accusations about his participation in, as Cal Thomas calls them, "events connected with the Muslim Brotherhood."
A Desperate ‘Longshot’
Some in the Obama administration are desperate to jumpstart peace negotiations with the Taliban in advance of NATO’s summit in Chicago next month.
A Faulty Intelligence Report Lives On
The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program lives on in the imagination of some government officials. At the end of a lengthy piece by James Risen in the New York Times this past weekend an anonymous official claims: “That assessment holds up really well.”
A Modest Proposal For Israel
Here's the latest in our occasional series of how-to memos on global diplomacy. Memo: To Israel From: Big Brother Consulting Service, Washington, D.C. Executive Summary: In the midst of the current crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations, we set ourselves the brainteaser of trying to figure out what Israel could actually do that would both allow it to survive as a nation--and at the same time get along with the Obama administration. It took some blue-sky thinking. But after reviewing President Obama's foreign policy trends and maneuvers to date, along with some older items on the record, we came up with a number of possibilities, listed below. They have the drawback that they would be utterly unpalatable to Israel's free and democratic society. But they have the upside that they might allow Israel to at least blend in among a number of countries the Obama administration treats with relative tolerance, patience and restraint--reaching out, seeking dialogue or, if necessary, bearing witness while waiting for history to complete its long arc of justice.
A More Civil and Honest Public Discourse?
President Obama last week refuted – clearly and commendably -- those who have been attempting to exploit the bloodbath in Tucson to smear conservative polemicists and law-abiding gun owners. We cannot “use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other,” he said. He added that while “a simple lack of civility” did not cause a deeply disturbed young man to commit multiple murders, “a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation.” How likely is it that we will soon have such a discourse? I’m more pessimistic than ever. Let me explain.
A Syria in Minor Key
The strategic vacuum the United States is leaving in the Middle East is creating a dangerously unstable situation, arguably similar to the one immediately preceding the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. This is characterized by a void in regional leadership and a disengaged Washington incapable of dictating regional dynamics.
A Tale of Two Egyptian Armies
Last week, the Obama administration started releasing the $1.3 billion in U.S. military assistance to Egypt that’s been on hold since October. Over the objections of human rights advocates and democracy activists, Hillary Clinton signed a waiver...
A Talk with Samir Geagea, Head of the Lebanese Forces
Samir Geagea is reluctant to speak much of the attempt on his life last month. It was here, at his home in Maarab, a fortified villa high in the mountains, where one or more snipers allegedly took aim at the head of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian majority party.
A Truth Commission?
A growing chorus of critics is demanding the creation of a special commission to "investigate" the Bush administration's alleged abuses of power, especially prosecution of the war on terrorism.
A Year of Lost Chances by Obama in Iran
Saturday will mark one year since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole a second presidential term in a rigged Iranian election. The response last year was shocking: Hundreds of thousands of angry Iranians flooded the streets. It was the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. It was also a chance to turn the screws on the regime in Tehran, which has been sponsoring terrorism for decades, working to acquire a nuclear weapon, and repressing its own people.
Abbas’s Police State
The Palestinian Authority is taking aggressive new measures to squelch dissent -- and the White House is missing in action.
Addressing Genocide
The shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum serves as a stark reminder: Holocaust denial is not a problem simply because some people choose to falsify history.
Advise, Don’t Consent
President Obama is writing to the wrong people, and those wrong people are hopelessly confused about his power and their own. This is how bad agreements are born.
Al Qaeda Releases Vdeo of American Captured in Pakistan
Al Qaeda has released its first video of Warren Weinstein, an American citizen who was kidnapped in Lahore, Pakistan in August 2011. In the videotape, Weinstein pleaded with US President Barack Obama to submit to al Qaeda's demands to ensure his release before he is killed.
Al Qaeda’s Big Fat Iranian Wedding
The Bush administration waged what it called a Global War on Terrorism. Yet against Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, no serious actions were ever taken. President Obama is waging what he calls a “war against al Qaeda and its affiliates.”
Al Qaeda’s Network in Iran
An al Qaeda cell slated to take part in one of the final plots ordered by Osama bin Laden made use of an Iran-based terror network that, according to the Obama administration, operates “under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.”
