Smackdown: Convoy vs. Flotilla
Perhaps the biggest recent news in Gaza-blockade busting is the lack of enthusiasm for it shown by some regional governments. Beirut delayed the departure of the Lebanese “women’s flotilla” flagship,...
View ArticleMissing the Big Picture in Sudan
John Bolton has a good opinion piece about the upcoming (January 2011) referendum on independence for Southern Sudan. He points out that a break-up and its aftermath are likely to have repercussions...
View ArticleBlock This Sale
The bad ideas just keep coming. A few bloggers and news outlets picked up this week on the report that a Russian company wants to acquire a 51 percent stake in a U.S. uranium-mining operation. Four...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
Rep. Mark Kirk is stretching out his lead in Illinois. The last time his opponent led in a poll was October 11. Pat Toomey is finishing strong in Pennsylvania. If Obama is thinking of dumping Joe...
View ArticleBureaucracy 101
A college course could be built around the new UN report on North Korea’s continuing proliferation activities. The report, released on Friday, was ready for publication in May 2010 but was delayed for...
View ArticleCivilian Trials for Terror Suspects and America’s Image Abroad
The case for handling terrorists outside the civil legal system has now received support from an unlikely quarter: Judge Lewis Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan. Judge Kaplan presided over...
View ArticleWhither Defense Spending?
The Washington Post‘s symposium on defense spending is revealing. The argument for maintaining and, indeed, increasing defense spending is aptly set forth by Fred Kagan and Kim Kagan: Cutting U.S....
View ArticleA Man Like Bush
At the New Yorker, George Packer has a harsh assessment of George Bush’s Decision Points, a book he predicts “will not endure.” Packer’s 3,300-word piece has only two sentences of praise, stuck in a...
View ArticleGeorge W. Bush Champions the Fight Against AIDS in Africa
George W. Bush has written a powerful and elegant op-ed on why AIDS in Africa is America’s fight. The former president argues that it has served American interests to help prevent the collapse of...
View ArticleA Response to John Derbyshire
In his post responding to George W. Bush’s op-ed on combating AIDS in Africa, John Derbyshire writes this: The subsidizing of expensive medications (the biggest part of our AIDS-relief effort, though...
View ArticleResponding to John Derbyshire (Again)
John Derbyshire has responded to my post in which I took him to task for his criticisms of President Bush’s initiative to fight AIDS in Africa. Here are a few reactions to what Derbyshire writes: 1....
View ArticleAnother NPR Hit Piece on Israel
Never mind Juan Williams: What really gets me about National Public Radio is the way it manages to cover Israel in a manner more reminiscent of Tishreen‘s or Al Jazeera’s style than that of an American...
View ArticleSaber-Rattling: The New Normal
Americans will have to get used to something in the coming years: we are not necessarily the main audience for foreign saber-rattling. When China unveiled its new “stealth” fighter last week, American...
View ArticleUSAID, Spanish Government Supporting Anti-Israel Tourism Group?
Some Israeli bloggers have discovered that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Spanish government may be involved with a Palestinian tourism website that seems to be...
View ArticleMartin Luther King Jr.
On this holiday honoring his birth, it is worth reminding ourselves why Martin Luther King Jr. deserves the place he holds in the American imagination. Dr. King was — with Jefferson, Madison, and...
View ArticleOh, Man, Not Another Sputnik Moment …
I keep a list of historical analogies — derived from years of grading papers — that tell me that the individual using them is (to be polite) more interested in rhetorical impact than historical...
View ArticleMoynihan on Democracy
Yesterday I quoted Ronald Reagan on the central role freedom and human rights should play in American foreign policy. Today I want to follow up with a quote from the man Michael Barone called “the...
View ArticleChina’s Arms Exports Aren’t Mistakes
Colum Lynch had an interesting feature on China’s arms exports to sub-Saharan Africa in the Washington Post this weekend. His premise was that, while China does all it can to prevent this trade from...
View ArticleU.S. Can’t Afford to be Out of Africa
There hasn’t much foreign policy discussion this election season, either in the Republican primaries or in the general election campaign. Certainly, there has been some lip service paid to Iran, but it...
View ArticleWhat Is Iran Up to in Africa?
Last month, I published a lengthy analysis on Iranian activity in Africa for the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office. Long story short, while the United States more or less ignores Africa, the...
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