All Americans, nay, all English speakers should read this blog. It appears that the English language has changed nearly overnight because the same comments by President Barack Obama on Sunday garnered a substantially different reaction than those nearly identical remarks on Thursday. Either the English language morphed over the weekend, or Obama critics simply weren’t […]
Obama’s speech did not receive much attention in the Turkish press. Most newspapers mentioned it in a tiny box on their front pages with a little more mention in their foreign affairs sections. Newspapers Akşam, Güneş, Sabah, Yeni Şafak highlighted the part of Obama’s speech concerning Syria, interpreting it as a ‘clear ultimatum’ to Assad. […]
There was a huge outcry over President Obama’s comments that future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on the 1967 lines. While his comments were inappropriate and ill-timed, what he said was in no way an ultimatum or even definitive for that matter. Quite the opposite, he merely stated that the ’67 […]
The bulk of headlines this morning on President Barack Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday emphasized that the Israelis, Palestinians, Hamas, or the Arab world are incensed by some policy outlined yesterday. These complaints are only about spinning the speech for future negotiations and not based in reality, with Obama using the opportunity to […]
“President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition, or get out of the way.” This is the key phrase of President Barack Obama’s speech regarding Syria. Yawn. I can’t say it came as a big surprise, but this speech was largely a waste of time, and a missed opportunity, especially when looked at […]
Not one single word in Obama’s Middle East speech included or even made a remote reference to Turkey. This, from Turkey’s perspective, was the most important part of yesterday’s policy position statement. In traditional Turkish collective memory, Middle East has been a realm of ‘problem’, which Turkey had to stay away from; some of those […]
President Barack Obama’s historic speech today on the future of the so-called Arab Spring and Israel-Palestinian negotiations included several harsh words for both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and in some instances backed the same policy employed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who, instead of embracing the gesture, is now responding defiantly. While Obama’s […]
President Barack Obama’s message to the Muslim world was crucial in three ways: The President underlined more than once the importance of integrating the economies of this tumultuous region into the global economy and the role of young Arabs in making this grand task possible; President Obama declared to the world that the era of […]
Below is a link to an insightful response by American Jewish Commitee’s David Harris to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recent New York Times op-ed on the future of Palestinian statehood. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2721459/posts Unlike Harris, I was actually ambivalent about the path to Palestinian statehood via the UN. However, the hostile tone and distorted narrative of the recent NYT op-ed […]
President Obama’s speech on Thursday was designed to introduce a symbolic redefinition of American policy in the Middle East. Assuring his international audience that an ever-changing world demands continued leadership, his words ushered in a new chapter of American diplomacy.
Iraqi security forces announced the arrest of four suspected leaders of the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network
The Following piece is written by a Yemeni-based journalist who writes for the Foreign Policy Blogs network and, due to serious security concerns, remains anonymous. HOOD (National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms) is the most prominent and most quoted human rights organization in Yemen. HOOD has been known in recent years for blowing the […]
Popular from Press
