The final presidential debate earlier this week was a tailor-made opportunity for Mitt Romney to rip into President Obama’s inconsistent, value-free, and at times incoherent foreign policy. And it was also an opportunity for the president to explain his administration’s material misrepresentations on the murders of our ambassador and others in Libya. Instead, we heard …
Continue reading “Silence on Libya”
It is perhaps human nature to seek to blame someone else for one’s own personal failings. But what is possibly only a misdemeanor in personal interactions becomes rather more serious when entire nations and races are systematically and comprehensively blamed for the failures of other nations to comprehend simple truths. I am, of course, referring …
Continue reading “Blaming the Muslims”
At least 25 Iraqis were killed and 31 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. A nine-year-old, who was shopping for Eid al-Adha, was among the dead.
Jimmy Carter recently made news by traveling to Palestine two weeks before a U.S. presidential election and berating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama, an American president of his own party, for — despite their rhetoric to the contrary — virtually abandoning the “two-state solution” for peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carter additionally …
Continue reading “Middle East Peace Remains Elusive”
CAIRO — The tranquil, green, upper-class Cairo suburb Maadi is a bubble of privilege separated from the city’s noisier, dirtier, overcrowded suburbs where working-class Egyptians struggle to make ends meet and where Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has established a strong following. But this bubble of tranquility stands juxtaposed to another reality which threatens other parts …
Continue reading “Christians Worry Over a Future in Egypt”
One striking impression of this debate was that out of some 17,000 words uttered by both candidates and the moderator, about half of them were about domestic policy. Neither candidate wanted to talk about foreign policy — because the differences between them are negligible. Out of this half, about 1500 words were devoted to the …
Continue reading “Debate Summary: Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel”
Bombs and mortars left at least 14 dead in and around the capital. Another 44 people were wounded. Although it has been relatively peaceful the last several days, insurgents could be gearing up for the Eid al-Adha holiday later this week.
The much awaited foreign policy debate Monday night probably did nothing to create a clear contrast between President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney. It did, however, confirm that neither candidate offers much of a foreign policy vision moving into the November election. Furthermore, it proved that Romney’s “Grand Strategy” is nothing more than …
Continue reading “Romney’s ‘Me Too’ Foreign Policy Debate”
“It would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven’t had such discussions,” said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, of reports the Obama White House has agreed to one-on-one talks with Tehran over its nuclear program. Sen. Lindsey Graham dissented Sunday: “I think the time for talking is over. … …
Continue reading “Negotiations — or War With Iran?”
It was exactly 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy took to the airwaves to inform the world that the Soviet Union was introducing nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba and that he had ordered a blockade of the island — and would consider stronger action — to force their removal. “It was the most chilling …
Continue reading “50th Anniversary of Cuban Missile Crisis Offers Lessons for Iran” 
