Foreign Policy Blogs

U.S. Foreign Policy

High Commisioner, High Controversy

High Commisioner, High Controversy

This week there is a lot of action going on at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The UN Security Council is meeting about imposing new sanctions on Iran. The Commission on the Status of Women is in its second week of meetings. To add to the action, now comes reports of controversy […]

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Crucial Phase for Secretary Rice

Secretary Condoleezza Rice travels to Israel this week to help restart peace talks.  Rocket attacks followed by Israeli raids escalated towards the end of last week, erupting into a Gaza incursion on Saturday.   Abu Mazen suspended negotiations with Israel, due to the escalation in violence. We have cited on this blog before the dual track […]

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Obama Gets a Bollywood Makeover

Continuing the theme of Obama supporters and musical cultural hybrids, I couldn't help posting this Bollywood music video. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/sA-451XMsuY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Enjoy!

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"The Whole World is Watching"

A new documentary film, “The Chicago Ten,” which recounts the stormy days of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, brings to mind the chant of the anti-(Vietnam) war protesters who clashed with police near the convention hall: “The Whole World is Watching.” Many of my generation watched the gavel-to-gavel coverage of that divisive gathering, certain […]

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Weekend Reading

Apologies for the lack of posting at the end of this week. By chance, Melinda and I picked the same week to move, thus our attention has been slightly drawn away. In the absence of an in-depth post, here are some interesting articles for our readers. Angelina Jolie on humanitarian assistance in Iraq Fouad Ajami […]

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An Explosive Absence

An Explosive Absence

Last week, more than 100 government leaders met in Wellington, New Zealand to discuss an international treaty banning cluster munitions (aka cluster bombs). This was the fourth meeting of states committed to eradicating these weapons (the first took place one year ago in Oslo, Norway, the second in Lima, Peru in May 2007, and the […]

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Democratic Candidates to World: Se Habla Espanol

Yesterday Senator Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama's faced offover such foreign policy issues as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Iraq war at the MSNBC debate in Ohio last night. The NAFTA discussion must have tickled Senator Clinton's inner Latino, because on Monday her campaign released a “Hispanic campaign song.” I know you can't wait to hear it, […]

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American Idol

When does the growing popularity of Barack Obama , at home and overseas , begin to impact the terrible polling numbers that the United States has been getting in foreign opinion surveys? Lately we've been seeing more reports of negative foreign views of the U.S., such as yesterday's NPR report from Berlin. But these reports […]

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Diplomacy in North Korea: Listen to the Music

Diplomacy in North Korea: Listen to the Music

From April 11th to April 17th, 1971 a group of Americans were invited to play ping pong in China. Dubbed ping pong diplomacy, it helped improve U.S.-China relations. In fact, on April 14th of that year the United States announced it would end it's trade embargo with China. One year later Nixon made his infamous […]

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Former US Envoy Remains Optimistic about Darfur

Former US Envoy Remains Optimistic about Darfur

(Arial photo of Darfur refugee camp) The conflict in Darfur, the Western province on Sudan is the most protracted of the 21st century. Since 2003, the people of Darfur have sustained violence, genocide, starvation, disease and profound misery. While estimates range, Amnesty International puts the death toll at 300,000 (95,000 killed and more than 200,000 […]

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American Professor Interprets US Election to Turkey

American Professor Interprets US Election to Turkey

(Richard Falk) Yesterday Today's Zaman News, a Turkish English-language daily newspaper, published an opinion piece by Richard Falk, an American professor of international law at Princeton University. Titled “What to expect from the next American president in the Middle East,” the piece gives a well-rounded, in-depth summary of the current status of the US presidential […]

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Israel and Hamas: Is a Cease-Fire Looming?

Israel and Hamas: Is a Cease-Fire Looming?

It seems Israel is mulling over a cease-fire offer from Hamas. Earlier in the week, Defense Minister Barak warned Syria and Turkey that Israel had plans to launch a major operation against Hezbollah and Hamas. A few days later, a Hamas spokesman said, "we won't rule out any bid for cease-fire with Israel." This morning, […]

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Henry Crumpton on US Strategy

When Henry Crumpton speaks, the US Diplomacy blog listens. Henry, also know as "Hank" during his time at the CIA, played a pivotal role in overthrowing the Taliban months after Sept 11th. He is currently the Ambassador-at-Large for counterterrorism at the State Department. Crumpton understands the intricacies of the tribal nature in Afghanistan. He recognizes […]

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Heritage discusses Public Diplomacy

Heritage discusses Public Diplomacy

Last week the Heritage Foundation, the conservative, Washington-based think tank, held a discussion titled “Public Diplomacy: Reinvigorating America's Strategic Communications Policy.” The panel included presentations by Colleen Graffy, the State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Public Diplomacy (PD) for Europe and Eurasia, Michael Doran the Department of Defense's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for […]

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The 51st State

Today brought the news that Barack Obama had won the vote among registered overseas Democrats, beating Hillary Clinton 65% to 32%.  Some 22,000 overseas Americans in 164 countries took part in the week-long vote. However, following the Democrats’ usual rules that award convention delegates proportionately, Obama was awarded only 2.5 delegates to Clinton's 2.0. Another […]

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