Last year 22-year old Harvard graduate Amar Bakshi embarked on a world tour that was a bit different than the usual post-college international tour d’hostel. His globe trekking had a specific mission: Find out what the world thinks about the United States. (Bakshi's Itinerary) Armed with a digit camera, a microphone and a laptop, Bakshi […]
The Huffington Post published an op-ed authored by three former Foreign Service Officers titled “Why We Said No: Three Diplomats’ Duty.” The authors, Ann Wright, John Brown, and Brady Kiesling resigned as US diplomats in opposition to the invasion of Iraq. You may read Kiesling's letter of resignation, published in the New York Times, here. […]
Exactly one month to the day, Serb rioters broke into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade in a public display of their anger towards the United State for their recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. International Crisis Group completed an excellent briefing this week summarizing the events of the last month and laying out several […]
Middle East Online (and Al Jazeera magazine subsequently) published an intriguing article by Rima Merhi, a Lebanese human rights activist and research fellow at the Middle East Institute working on Arab media outreach to American public opinion. Based on the readership of the two publications, it is safe to assume that Mehri is speaking to primarily an […]
This week violence broke out the capitol city of Tibet. Tibetans demanding independence from China took to the street in a rare act of defiance from almost 50 years of Chinese rule. Tibet's government-in-exile said 80 Tibetans had been confirmed killed by the Chinese while trying to squash the protests. The Economist reports in-depth from Lhasa: “China […]
On his way to a scheduled trip to Israel and the West Bank, Vice President Cheney made an unannounced stop in Iraq. Now five years since the invasion commenced, the Vice President met with Prime Minister Maliki to push him on political reconciliation. While he described changes since his last visit ten months ago as […]
Think of it as fence-mending, image-building and playing his strong suit. With the Republican nomination now in hand, John McCain is making the overseas trip he was forced to delay earlier this month when he still faced opposition from both Mike Huckabee and from conservatives unreconciled to his being the Republican standard bearer. Now he's […]
There have been rumors circulating (or for some hawks, wishful thinking) that the Bush administration has been considering a unilateral attack on Iran. The move would be aimed at halting the Iranian government's nuclear enrichment program, which the US government believes will lead to the development of not just nuclear energy (as the Iranians claim) […]
I was sad to miss this event put on by the Center for Global Engagement in Washington, DC last week. The event featured General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Ret.) and Admiral Leighton W. Smith, Jr., USN (Ret.) fresh from testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. According to the Center, the General and […]
Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State during President Bush's first term, was recently interviewed by the Washington Diplomat. Armitage spoke about the need to repair the U.S.'s tarnished image abroad. He told the Diplomat: "The decline in American influence can be a temporary phenomenon. I believe most countries want us to be the indispensable […]
John Bolton, former Bush-appointed Ambassador to the United Nations, recently authored a book, titled Surrender Is Not An Option. The American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank in Washington, DC at which Bolton is a scholar, describes the book: “With no-holds-barred candor, the straight-talking former ambassador to the United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the U.N. and […]
UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations held a conference yesterday discussing US foreign policy and rogue states. Reviewing the list of accomplished conference speakers, I, and I'm sure my co-blogger would agree, wished the event was held in DC (yes, I see no need to hide my east coast bias). One of the speakers, Dan […]
The current issue of American Interest has a fascinating article lauding China's "smart policy" compared to the United States. The author, Kishore Mahbubani, is dean of the National University of Singapore. Mahbubani's article predominantly deals with China, however I have teased out several indictments on US actions, as interpreted by a foreign observer. Concerning the […]
A new report from the Washington, DC-based think tanks the Center for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) examines the gradual shift of foreign policy decision-making away from the State Department toward the Defense Department. Cleverly titled “Ready, Aim, Foreign Policy,” it can be […]
Is that the existential question? There's been much made of recent comments by Obama advisers that came back to bite them. Economic adviser Goolsbee talked to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago regarding NAFTA, Samatha Power told a UK journalist that Hillary was a “monster.” Both learned the hard way that campaign advisers are fair game […]