My last post noted how the blockbuster memoir by Robert M. Gates reinforces the points many observers have made about the defects of the Obama administration’s national security process. The revelations also bolster my own argument that President Obama and his team share a good deal of the responsibility for the ongoing crisis in relations between Washington and Hamid Karzai’s government […]
As regular readers know, the United States and five other countries (P5+1) concluded an interim nuclear agreement (the Joint Plan of Action) with Iran, setting the conditions that will hold during negotiations on a final agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program and the international economic sanctions imposed on that country and also outlining some aspects […]
On Friday, we will look back on the 50 years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and how that tragic event in Dallas changed history. Also, on Friday, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI will pay a state visit to Washington, D.C. and meet with President Barack Obama to look forward at how both our nations […]
The management flaws now coming to light in the implementation of the president’s signature domestic achievement have long been evident in the foreign policy realm. As I argue in a new essay on Fair Observer’s website, the White House’s policymaking machinery is overly insular, centralized and politicized. Dana Milbank, the Washington Post columnist who is generally supportive of Mr. […]
In his journey to the White House, Barack Obama made much hay railing against his predecessor’s supposedly go-it-alone mindset and penchant for foreign policy unilateralism. With memories still fresh of the spectacular rupture between Washington and its traditional European allies over the Iraq war, Obama’s claim to be the “anti-Bush” garnered him a euphoric welcome […]
A post last month argued that President Obama was fast approaching a defining moment for his foreign policy in view of the mounting evidence that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria used sarin, a lethal nerve gas, in violation of Mr. Obama’s numerous warnings not to do so. The day of reckoning has now arrived […]
Last Wednesday was a day of extremes for the former Secretary of State, who was in Beverly Hills to pick up a public service award from a private foreign policy organization. There her tenure at the State Department was lauded as activists from a group called “Ready for Hillary 2016” gathered nearby to round out the […]
According to a new Gallup survey, more than two-thirds of the U.S. public has a positive impression of India, a score that even edges out Israel’s traditionally high favorability rating. This is the latest indicator of how decisively American perceptions about the country have changed. Not too long ago, India was regarded as the very […]
Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security advisor, was at the Asia Society in New York last week to talk (transcript here; video here) about the Obama administration’s effort to shift Washington’s strategic focus away from the military quagmires of the Greater Middle East to the dynamism of Asia – a region where, as the president […]
With Secretary Kerry currently traveling on his inaugural trip overseas as secretary of state, the Pew Center has compiled data on public opinion of the U.S. in the countries that he is visiting. Public opinion in the various countries on his agenda (though Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi were not in the Pew report) […]
“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible” — Vince Lombardi Will Secretary of State Kerry prove to be a master of the foreign relations game by overcoming the seemingly impossible? Or will he have a hard time finding his footing on the slippery geopolitical pitch and achieve […]
For decades there have been conversations, tough questions, “ah-ha” moments, deep insights and common sense shared in one-on-one exchanges with John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. In all those times interacting with them, watching them, analyzing them, not one umbrella has been spotted. These men are not appeasers or pleasers. They are not those who seek […]
Popular from Press
