There seem to be two enduring issues surrounding the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. The one that has received the most attention is the election-year hysteria over a supposed administration effort to cover up the fact of an attack. I shall return to that one at […]
During Monday night’s town hall style debate between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, the domestic issues once again seem poised to take the spotlight until one Mr. Kerry Ladka took to the microphone. Asking President Obama about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Ladka said: This question actually comes from a […]
In their sole debate before the election, Vice President Joe Biden and GOP challenger Congressman Paul Ryan sparred for 90 minutes on the direction of U.S. policy, both for foreign and domestic. Last night’s debate was a stark contrast to last week’s meeting between the two men at the top of the tickets, with Biden […]
Less than a week after a controversial, anti-Islamic film incited violence throughout the Middle East, riots and protests gained momentum from a French satirical magazine’s publication of crude representations of the Prophet Muhammad. Meant to mock violence sparked by the American-made film Innocence of Muslims, the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, included pornographic and demeaning illustrations […]
The protest and violence associated with a film highly offensive to Islam is sure to play an outsized role in foreign policy discussions for the rest of the presidential race. Mitt Romney’s initial reaction to the Obama administration’s handling of unfolding events—and the backlash against Romney that this criticism generated—was a topic of frequent, well-covered […]
Over the last several decades, a variety of movements have arisen in the Arab and Islamic countries–a radical nationalism (Baath socialist, Marxist, pan-Arab, and so forth) and a series of Islamist movements (meaning Islamic fundamentalism in a political version). The movements have varied hugely and have even gone to war with one another–Iran’s Shiite Islamists […]
A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to get a phone call inviting me to the Democratic Convention to hear President Obama give his acceptance speech. I’m a registered independent voter and over the course of my life have voted for candidates of both parties. Attending the convention was one of the best experiences […]
To provide context to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and the death of J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Foreign Affairs has put together a collection of the 33 best pieces on the country. Spanning nearly 20 years, “Libya in Crisis” includes articles by Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh […]
Sometimes you have to do quite a bit of searching to find a good topic for an article. Sometimes the topic finds you. Since my blog is about democracy, I would be remiss if I did not mention the events that transpired on the evening of Sept. 11, 2012 in Libya. As are most, I […]
I’m saddened by the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, his colleague Sean Smith, and two other colleagues. It’s especially vexing that they should have been killed by Libyans after the role the U.S. played in liberating Libya from the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Perhaps the Libyans weren’t thinking about that when they […]
This short (59 min.) film was shot in 2003, well before the revolution that resulted in Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster and death in 2011. While an interesting topic, it will most likely be relegated to a small footnote in Libya’s history. From the time he took power in 1969, Colonel Qaddafi surrounded himself with […]
He simply could not resist. The addiction of power won over his pledge; Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his return to political life by igniting a new controversy over the lack of action of French President François Hollande in Syria. In a joint statement with Abdulbaset Sieda, president of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council […]
Currently, a key question for U.S. policymakers is how to engage with and/or support new governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. For those of you interested in the topic of U.S. foreign assistance to the Middle East, I strongly recommend a new Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) paper, The Federal Budget and Appropriations for […]
While much of what is immediately important about a democratic election is whether it was sufficiently free from corruption and interference for voters to decide the outcome, the devil is sometimes in the details. Seemingly minor bureaucratic and logistical concerns can threaten the value of an otherwise legitimate democratic exercise. Even in the United States, […]
The international relations history buffs among you probably know the story of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s quip about the French Revolution: when someone asked him about the revolution on one of President Nixon’s trips to China in the early 1970s, he said that it was “too soon to say.” Last year, a former foreign […]