Foreign Policy Blogs

Tag Archives: Obama

Winning an Election in the Americas: Apathy and Corruption Compete for the Best of the Worst

Winning an Election in the Americas: Apathy and Corruption Compete for the Best of the Worst

Student protests this year in the streets of Montreal over a relatively small tuition hike took the Quebec government by storm. In reality, it is likely more than just tuition that fuelled this year’s protests with the Liberal Party of Quebec facing allegations of corruption after nine long years in power. The Parti Quebecois, the […]

read more

Global Health Update: World Water Week, Misoprostol, and Overtreatment

Global Health Update: World Water Week, Misoprostol, and Overtreatment

Clean Drinking Water: The Cure for Malnutrition? This week is World Water Week — which is timely, given the serious cholera outbreak in Sierra Leone and neighboring countries. The focus of this year’s conference is on food security, water scarcity, and their ties to food (and water) waste. As I’ve written before, up to 40 percent […]

read more

U.S. must tread carefully in Zimbabwe

U.S. must tread carefully in Zimbabwe

Council of Foreign Relations senior fellow Ambassador John Campbell recently released a policy innovation memorandum entitled, “Zimbabwe: An Opportunity for Closer U.S.-South Africa Relations.” It is heartening to see analysts writing on topics they perceive as beneficial to closer relations between the United States and South Africa. Campbell, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, makes […]

read more

Big Change in American Nuclear Policy?

Big Change in American Nuclear Policy?

  The U.S. is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war. As we approach the anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, it’s an appropriate time to take a look at the state of U.S. nuclear policy. American nuclear policy has changed dramatically under the Obama Administration. True or false? It’s true […]

read more

The Golden Straightjacket and the Choke Effect in Practice

The Golden Straightjacket and the Choke Effect in Practice

This past week the Council on Hemispheric Affairs published an article on the Obama Administration’s actions to depressurize the relationship between Argentina and the “vulture funds” that made profit off Argentina’s default from their 2001 economic collapse. With so many formerly healthy economies in Europe now facing the same end game as Argentina did nearly […]

read more

Holder’s Contempt Charge on Way to Appeals Court? Is Fast and Furious Politically Motivated?

Holder’s Contempt Charge on Way to Appeals Court? Is Fast and Furious Politically Motivated?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted (255 to 67) to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his refusal to hand over thousands of documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee more than a year ago. The documents, believes Darrell Issa (R-Calif), who heads the Committee, are pivotal to understanding the […]

read more

In Letter to President, Leading Experts Call for Recalibration of Policy On Yemen

In Letter to President, Leading Experts Call for Recalibration of Policy On Yemen

27 Leading Experts Say That Current US Policy Does Not Serve Long-Term American Security Interests  WASHINGTON — Twenty-seven leading foreign policy experts have sent a letter to President Obama, calling for a broader approach on US policy towards Yemen that “expands beyond the narrow lens of counterterrorism.” As US intelligence agencies point to the rise […]

read more

Obama’s Immigration Push Needs to Push Harder

Obama’s Immigration Push Needs to Push Harder

After years of writing on the FPA immigration blog on topics usually concerned with Latino immigration in the United States, I sincerely believe that there are no current policies or legal frameworks that can handle the issue of illegal immigration in the US. With no real spokesperson for the millions of illegal immigrants in the […]

read more

The Missing Variable Within the Euro-Atlantic Community: Foreign Policy

The Missing Variable Within the Euro-Atlantic Community: Foreign Policy

2012 has been the year of elections and ideological divisions. France is no exception to the rule. On May 15th, 2012, François Hollande officially became the President of France. His first action was to fly to Berlin, despite the weather, in order to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This strategic move is important for […]

read more

Underwear Bomb Informant Worked for Saudi Intel–Not CIA, FBI, or MI6

Underwear Bomb Informant Worked for Saudi Intel–Not CIA, FBI, or MI6

Underwear bomber number 2 (still unnamed) isn’t the only one with his shorts in a twist over the latest attempt to bring terror to the sky over the Atlantic. The CIA, FBI, and MI6 are all scrambling to explain (or unexplain) their accounts of who did what when to take-down the would-be bomber and save a planeload of unwary infidels from mid-air incineration. US intelligence is blaming the administration for ‘leaks’ they say compromise a secret intelligence partnership, while other, perhaps less sanctioned leakers from each agency continue to spin the story in ways designed to claim victory for their team. Word is that someone at the White House leaked ‘the story’ to a national security advisor or some intel czar who then passed it on to three major networks.

The result? Alerts about the nefarious ‘underwear bomber’ have dominated the news for days, the mainstream media (getting it wrong again) rushing to attribute the just-in-time preemptive strike to the talents and skill of US intelligence. First reports indicated that the individal in charge of the entire operation was employed by the CIA, a ‘double agent’ in control of the whole operation from start to finish…

read more

My 1981….

My 1981….

17 years later the socialists are back in power. François Hollande was elected president of France on Sunday evening. He is the second socialist, after François Mitterrand, to assume the highest function of the state. Mr. Hollande defeated Mr. Sarkozy with 51.62% of votes. Interestingly, these numbers do not represent the reality of the votes of […]

read more

US-India: Take a Breath

US-India: Take a Breath

Like after a good first date, expectations can get a little out of hand when it comes burgeoning alliances between states. In the late 90’s relations between the US and India began to thaw (agreed to date), through the 2000s, as the two sides’ interests began to mold so did their relationship (going steady), and […]

read more

Chester A. Arthur, Communism, and Egypt’s Constitutional Court

Chester A. Arthur, Communism, and Egypt’s Constitutional Court

Just as the blogosphere was starting to become familiar with the likely frontrunners in Egypt’s upcoming presidential race, the election commission disqualified three of the most most visible candidates, upholding this decision on Tuesday. The commission deemed candidates ineligible for various reasons: Salafist preacher Hazem Abu Ismail’s mother was an American citizen, Muslim Brotherhood financier Khairat al-Shater […]

read more

Clooney’s Looney Plan for Sudan

Clooney’s Looney Plan for Sudan

Hollywood on the Potomac–movie actors deserting Tinseltown to remind the Big Dogs back east that every time an A-list celeb is arrested for picketing a foreign embassy an angel gets his wings.

Actor George Clooney, his father Nick, and four Congressional Democrats were among more than a dozen protesters who descended on the Sudanese Embassy on March 16 for the purpose of crossing, in a disorderly fashion, a police line.
The cast of characters? Along with Clooneys I and II, it included Reps. James Moran (D-VA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), John Olver (D-MA) and Al Green (D-TX). NAACP President Ben Jealous was also arrested, along with Martin Luther King III.
Clooney’s mid-day performance on Mass Ave was the finale to a 3-day tour in DC that included an impassioned plea to a standing-room-only crowd at the Council on Foreign Relations, and dramatic testimony delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the miserable state of affairs in the border region of Sudan.
Omar al-Bashir’s military, operating out of Khartoum, is working assiduously to wipe out mostly Christian populations hunkered down on some highly contested, oil-rich real estate to the south.
Clooney, who has frequently taken on the role of the world-weary activist in his films, accuses Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and the ‘same criminals responsible for Darfur’ of conducting a genocidal war against his own people, of starving, maiming, raping, and murdering them.

And he says it as if no one has ever heard it before. . .

read more

US Policymakers and the Press Ignoring Arpaio’s Allegations–Why?

US Policymakers and the Press Ignoring  Arpaio’s  Allegations–Why?

You know, I promised myself I wasn’t going to write about this. Promised. The fact is I heard about it yesterday, so we’re talking, what? 24 hours? But this is the Foreign Policy Association global blog site, right? And despite my focus on crime and corruption, I like to think I bring a certain (educated) perspective to events too often triggered by what even I, an east coast elitist, can only describe as bad, bad craziness. Boundaries–or their absence–can be important cultural markers, and I knew–I know–even as I write, that this is a name guaranteed to set a lot of very straight, very white teeth on edge: Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa Country, Arizona.

read more

About Us

Foreign Policy Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program. Staffed by professional contributors from the worlds of journalism, academia, business, non-profits and think tanks, the FPB network tracks global developments on Great Decisions 2014 topics, daily. The FPB network is a production of the Foreign Policy Association.