On June 7, the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C., sponsored a discussion of the Polakow-Suransky book in which Shimon Peres is said to have offered apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons–the subject of an earlier blog. The discussion involved several experts on Israel and international affairs, notably Avner Cohen, author of The Worst Kept Secret: Israel’s […]
Turkish President Gul pictured with the world’s most notorious extremist, who is quoted in the article below as saying that the Zionists are “holding up the flag of the devil itself…” and are “the backbone of the dictatorial world order,” taking a page again from Julius Streicher’s Der Stuermer. In its drive to be a regional power, […]
Interesting Economist article (below) discussing whether other Asian currencies — the Korean won, Thai Baht, Singapore dollar, Malaysian Ringgit, New Taiwan dollar, Vietnamese dong, Indian rupee, Indonesian rupiah — track the Chinese yuan in order to maintain competitiveness in US markets relative to China as well as access to the Chinese market. There have been […]
Benjamin Netanyahu subscribes to the George W. Bush school of anti-diplomacy. It’s nice to blow off steam, especially when you are in the right. But does brandishing your sword make an effective foreign policy? Ask Kaiser Wilhelm II, the arch-villain of World War I, whose bluster and belligerence led to the encirclement of Germany, his gravest fear. Ask most Americans after W left […]
After being married for over a year, my wife and I have finally found the time to go on a honeymoon. So I won’t be posting for the next several weeks. This post’s title should let you know where we’re going. Reading material for the long plane ride is, appropriately, The History of the Decline […]
It hasn’t been a good season for Israel. Even before its ill-advised raid on the Gaza convoy, which could have and might yet cause the Security Council’s agreement on Iran sanctions to come unglued, there was a string of more or less unsavory allegations about the history of its nuclear weapons program. First came the […]
There’s been a lot written about how terrible it would be if the ICC activated its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. Members of the U.S. Congress, the Heritage Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Goldstone, Harold Koh, and the Wall Street Journal have all come out against it. They’re wrong. Read my piece […]
Cynthia Schweer of the FPA Global Health blog notes that Obama’s NSS talks more about global health than Bush’s 2006 NSS (Obama mentions it 35 times compared to Bush’s 5). But does this actually represent an increased devotion on Obama’s part to solving global health issues? Obama’s NSS does contain this statement: The United States […]
If Israel had wanted to torpedo the fourth round of UN nuclear sanctions against Iran, accelerate Iran’s weaponization efforts, and hasten the day when Tel Aviv will face a second nuclear-armed hostile Islamic state, it could have done no better than attack the Gaza convoy and kill anti-blockade activists. The UN Security Council was scheduled […]
Though Memorial Day did not become federal law until the 20th century, per above document, its origins reside in the post-Civil War era. Perhaps for this reason, the words of General William Tecumseh Sherman are with me today: I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success […]
The Obama administration published its new National Security Strategy this week. So of course everyone is debating whether or not it’s actually much different than the Bush administration’s 2002 NSS, which laid out the argument for preventive military action. AP tells us, “Obama’s new security strategy breaks with Bush.” The NYT article on the report […]
Last week the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Maqaleh v. Gates that detainees held by the U.S. in Afghanistan cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts. There are many jurisdictional issues at play, some of which stem from the Supreme Court’s Eisentrager decision in 1950, in which the court ruled that German nationals […]
Secret directive signed by General Petraeus in September gives U.S. military special forces the power to operate in friendly and hostile states in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Exposed by the New York Times on Monday, this order increases the power of U.S. armed forces abroad and authorizes clandestine military operations against terrorists and […]
The debate over current tensions on the Korean peninsula raises a lot of questions. Is Lee Myung-bak to blame for raising inter-Korean tensions previous to the naval incident? Did he repudiate the Sunshine Policy? Did the investigation reach the correct conclusion that a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean ship? How should we proceed? […]
It was an interesting week for intelligence issues. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the unclassified version of their report on the attempted Christmas day terrorist attack (http://intelligence.senate.gov/100518/1225report.pdf) and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, stepped down from the post amidst reports he had lost the confidence of President Obama. I’m stating […]