Tag Archives: foreign policy

Shoot First, Aim Later: Mitt Romney Resurrects George Bush’s Foreign Policy

On Libya, Mitt Romney channeled George Bush yesterday. By contrast, Barack Obama was sane and calm. __________ Obviously, if we’re to have any hope of avoiding war in the Middle East over the next several years, President Obama needs to be … Continue reading

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What Abbottabad Means: Elements in Pakistan’s Military were Shielding Osama bin Laden

Before President Obama had Osama bin Laden dispatched, Spiegel reports that Bin Laden was living large in a high-end neighborhood shared by Pakistani generals: It had long been assumed that he [Osama bin Laden] was hiding out in a cave … Continue reading

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Mohamed ElBaradei Demonization Watch: Anne Bayefsky Links ElBaradei to Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Regarding American right-wing paranoia over the street protesters in Cairo (Glenn Beck calls them “rioters”), Jonathan Chait of the New Republic nails it: [W]hat’s fascinating is the emergence [among the right] of a strain of paranoid anti-Islamism that lumps together Iran, Mohammed … Continue reading

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Is Kim Jong-il a Rational Player—the Choreographer of a Power Transfer to His 25 Year-Old Son, Kim Jong-un?

The New York Times today suggests in a recent news story that the shelling of a South Korean island by North Korea is just a way for Kim Jong-un, the 25-year-old son and presumptive heir of Kim Jong-il, to earn some street … Continue reading

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Apocalypse Now?: North Korea, a nuclear power, threatens full-scale war with South Korea

And this chilling sentence appeared in the New York Times story on the crisis: The motivations, health and even state of mind of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, remained cloaked in mystery. Got it? We don’t know whether, exactly, Kim … Continue reading

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The United States now has a defacto fourth branch of government: the Chinese Communist Party

Since Barack Obama’s election, right-wingers have been worried about a socialist tide within the United States’ three existing branches of government (the legislative, executive, and judicial branches). But Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson, of the Council on Foreign Relations, in recent … Continue reading

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A Song for Barack Obama: “Stuck in the Middle with You”

Barack Obama picked a hell of a time to be president: he’s a centrist politician who, in addition to inheriting a number of seemingly intractable economic and foreign policy dilemmas, is surrounded by total nut cases to one side of him … Continue reading

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Robert Wright on New Atheism’s Real World Impact

A piece on the New Atheist movement, written by Robert Wright, appeared this past week at Foreign Policy’s website: [T]he New Atheists’ main short-term goal wasn’t to turn believers into atheists, it was to turn atheists into New Atheists — fellow fire-breathing preachers … Continue reading

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Foreign Policy: I Thought Barack Obama Would Be This Way

And it’s one reason I voted for him. Here’s U.S National Security Advisor, General James Jones in an interview with Spiegel this week: SPIEGEL: Is it difficult to advise the president, Barack Obama? Jones: No, simply because he’s a very good student … Continue reading

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Andrew Sullivan Talks to Stephen Colbert about Barack Obama’s First Year Since Being Elected President

Here. Know hope.

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Yesterday, Barack Obama Sent Out a Kind Word to Iran, and Today We Get the Pleasure of Hearing the Response of Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is an authoritarian. Barack Obama is a liberal. As can be seen in the video above, Obama has recently made the gesture of sending a conciliatory and friendly message to Iran’s government and its people, and below is the response. According to … Continue reading

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Fareed Zakaria’s GPS is the Best Political Talk Show on Television

I’m blown away by the consistently high quality of Fareed Zakaria’s CNN Sunday show, “Fareed Zakaria’s GPS.” He always seems to find, for his show, the super smart among the super smart, and they always seem to have a thought provoking, … Continue reading

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Are We Living in Apocalyptic Economic and Foreign Policy Times? And Where There Are HAPPY FACES Is This Disjuncture Part of the Horror?

David Sirota of Salon.com thinks so: It’s not just the economic turbulence or the corruption that evokes this new darkness — both have been around for a while. It’s the “I feel fine” obliviousness of R.E.M.’s cataclysmic ballad — the … Continue reading

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The Portrait of the Minnesotan Islamic Terrorist as a Young Man?

The LA Times reports today on young Minnesota Muslims, in the 60,000 strong Somali immigrant community there, who are being recruited by terrorist organizations, and sneaking off to East Africa (on American passports!) to apparently “fight or train as terrorists” … Continue reading

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Former NY Times Foreign Reporter, Chris Hedges, Knew the Hamas Leader Recently Killed, and Explains and Contextualizes the Gaza Situation with Admirable Clarity

Chris Hedges begins his article thus: I often visited Nizar Rayan, who was killed Thursday in a targeted assassination by Israel, at his house in the Jabaliya refugee camp when I was in Gaza. The house is now rubble. It … Continue reading

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“He mainlines homework”: Bob Woodward on Obama as Intellectual—and Bush as Anti-Intellectual

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George Bush Exit Watch: We’ll Soon Have a President with a Better Reputation Than Vladimir Putin’s!

According to the Times of London today, back in August of 2008 French President Sarkozy tried to talk Russian president, Vladimir Putin, down from hanging Georgian president Sakkashvili. How? By appealing to Putin’s sense of shame. Sarkozy asked Putin whether, … Continue reading

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Sarah Palin’s “grasp of basic geo-political knowledge had major gaps”: Martin Eisenstadt Outs Himself as the “Africa Country-Continent” Leaker

Martin Eisenstadt, the McCain campaign top advisor who leaked to the press that Sarah Palin was confused, during debate prep, about whether Africa was a continent or a country, reveals today on his blog yet more things that Sarah Palin didn’t … Continue reading

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“Even at McDonald’s you’re interviewed three times before given a job”: Reagan’s Former Chief of Staff Endorses Obama and Slams McCain for Picking Palin

Today, Reagan’s former chief of staff endorsed Obama and told CNN that John McCain’s single interview with Sarah Palin (before picking her as VP) struck him as less thorough than the hiring process at McDonald’s!:

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“I Love the World”: A Four Year Old Draws a Picture of Barack Obama

My four year old knows I’m an admirer of Barack Obama, and so yesterday she drew me the above picture. My wife says that she was trying to decide whether to write over Barack’s head, “I like the world,” or “I … Continue reading

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