Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) asks Chuck Hagel when he stopped beating his wife during the SecDef confirmation hearing.
Iran
U.S. Purchases Fuel for Afghanistan, Possibly Undermines Own Iran Oil Sanctions
A new report shows that America did not have a method for accurately sourcing at least a billion dollars worth of fuel purchased by America for Afghanistan’s Army and security forces. Policy changes were undertaken in November.
Mitt Romney’s Commander in Chief Problem
For decades, Republican presidential candidates enjoyed a predictable advantage over Democrats on foreign policy. But not in 2012. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows President Barack Obama holding a steady 10-point lead …
Obama Announces New Tech Sanctions, But Effect May Be Limited
In marking Holocaust Remembrance Day , President Obama on Monday announced new sanctions targeting governments that use new technologies, such as cell phone and internet tracking, to carry out human rights abuses. The sanctions were aimed mostly at Iran and Syria, who have used new technologies to track dissidents.
“We need to be …
Obama Courts AIPAC Before Netanyahu Meeting
What a difference a year makes. Last year when President Barack Obama stood before the crowd at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington, he was on his heels, reeling from a week of …
Making Iran a Campaign Issue May Not Prove Easy for the GOP
In Washington, D.C., Iran seems to be on everyone’s minds.
Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie this week made the case in an op-ed in Foreign Policy that in order to win the White House, the eventual GOP nominee should focus on international affairs rather than the domestic economy. “The Republican candidate should …
Four Ways the U.S. Could End Up at War with Iran Before the Election*
Most political analysts in Washington believe that war with Iran is unlikely, especially before the November U.S. elections. Politically it would be hard for President Obama to engage in another Middle Eastern war given the
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Inside Obama’s World: The President talks to TIME About the Changing Nature of American Power
In an exclusive interview with TIME’s Fareed Zakaria, President Obama opens up on Iran, Afghanistan, China and the challenges the U.S. faces in navigating a rapidly changing world. A full transcript of their conversation follows
In the ArenaDiplomacy
The Truth About Iran
Fareed Zakaria has an important column today in the Washington Post, an antidote to the dangerous silliness about Iran that is being peddled by the Republican presidential candidates. Iran is faltering, not gaining strength, Fareed writes. The sanctions regime that the Obama Administration patiently negotiated with Russia and China is …
Iran’s Alleged Assassination Plot and Its Political Fallout
The Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed a complaint against two Iranians alleging a state-sponsored terrorist plot by members of Iran’s Quds Force against the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. The complaint alleges that Manssor Arbabsiar, a U.S.-Iranian dual citizen, and his al Quds handler, Gholam Shakuri, …
Will bin Laden Bluster Help Obama Weather Iran Debate in 2012?
There have been innumerable references in the wake of the death of Osama Bin Laden to Barack Obama’s 2007 assertion that he would go into Pakistan to kill the al-Qaeda leader with or without Islamabad’s permission.
What most have forgotten is that the saber-rattling threat was crafted specifically to counter a dovish gaffe.
In the ArenaUncategorized
Supreme Irony
The most common feature of autocracy, from Egypt to North Korea, is an overweening myopia and self-regard on the part of the autocrat. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatullah Khamenei, has demonstrated yet again how brutally silly such people can be in his remarks during Friday prayers at Tehran University:
The 71-year-old, who condemned
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In the ArenaUncategorized
Iran Amok
There are several possible responses to the appalling news that Iran seems to have brought espionage charges against three American hikers who wandered across the Kurdish border. Taken together with Iran’s apparent decision not to agree to the nuclear treaty it had agreed to, this is yet another signal of the Iranian regime going off the …