Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher died Friday in Los Angeles of kidney and bladder cancer. He was 85. Christopher had a long and distinguished career in public service and epitomized the prudence and restraint of his generation of Cold War diplomats. Unfailingly polite and carefully prepared, he was tapped by Cyrus Vance to …
Updated: 4:10 pm
With air strikes apparently imminent against the forces of Muammar Gaddafi, America faces a simple question: why is the U.S. going to war in Libya? There may be good reasons, even compelling ones. But so far the answers from the Obama administration are shockingly opaque, contradictory and incomplete.
Obama …
The UN Security Council voted this evening to authorize “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya “excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.”
The Associated Press reports that congressional officials say the Obama administration is preparing to participate in a no-fly zone and that …
Wolf Blitzer interviewed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today in Cairo and she was very blunt about her future in government:
Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?
No
Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?
No
Q- Would you like to be vice president of the
…
Nukes scare people. The before and after satellite photos of Friday’s earthquake in Japan showed over the weekend that the resulting tsunami had sheared off and washed away whole sections of the country’s economy. But it was the threat of a nuclear meltdown that sent global markets plunging Tuesday. US investors drove the Dow down …
As expected, Defense Secretary Robert Gates suspended the two-year ban on new action in military commissions for detainees at Guantanamo Bay today, resuming a practice Obama did away with as one of his first acts in office. For background on the tortured arc of Obama’s rightward move on this issue, see the piece I did with Weisskopf …
His exploratory page is here. Nate Silver doesn’t think much of his chances; George Will is obliquely blistering:
“Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah Gov. and departing ambassador to China Jon …
The Obama administration has spoken with two voices on Libya.
On the one hand Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said that “nothing is off the table so long as the Libyan Government continues to threaten and kill Libyans.” That talk has been amplified by calls from the Senate Foreign Relations chairman John Kerry …
Why Obama may do it, and why the administration may not be ready for what follows, here.
Back in 2005, Newt Gingrich authored a Congressionally-mandated study of UN reform with the Obama administration’s current Middle East envoy, George Mitchell. Among their many recommendations, Gingrich and Mitchell said the U.S. and U.N. should support countries intervening to stop war crimes in other countries even without the approval …
When you hold 90% of the market in something, how do you get out of it without tanking prices? That’s the problem the U.S. faces with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which requested $3.1 billion more in aid from the Treasury Department Friday as part of their ongoing conservatorship with the federal government. On the one hand, there’s a …
How do you restrain a megalomaniacal despot with unlimited funds who has a history of slaughtering innocents and could disrupt energy flows from the world’s 9th largest petroleum exporting country? President Obama took a stab at it this evening, using the threat of “accountability” repeatedly in brief remarks from the White House. But …
It was not long after he received a secret warning from the Italian government in April 1986 and narrowly escaped being blown to bits by American bombers that Muammar Gaddafi declared his intention to become Emperor of Africa. What followed as the increasingly erratic Gaddafi pursued his megalomaniacal dream was one of the most obscene …