Foreign Policy
October 14, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
With the presidential race extremely tight, and both sides having pulled out most of the stops, it’s worth considering what the candidates can do at this late date to move the needle. For Obama it will be all about turning in strong debate performances. A win in one or both of the two remaining contests might well restore the race to something like its pre-debate status. Two solid performances, even
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October 10, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been sequestered from the real world the last couple of days at a fascinating environmental conference with my pals at PERC in Bozeman, Montana, (featuring, among others, the fabulous Matt Ridley), so I’m behind on the news. I’ll have some exclusive video from the conference in a couple of days after I get home and edit the footage. Meanwhile, I had to be amused at one squib on the
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September 27, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Fox News has just reported that the US is withdrawing (supposedly temporarily) all its personnel from the US embassy in Tripoli, Libya. What–did they get advance word of a YouTube sequel to The Innocence of Muslims? Are they worried of another imminent “spontaneous” protest with marchers who carry mortars with them? More likely the Clousseaus of Foggy Bottom have figured out they have serious security breach problems in Libya and
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September 14, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Mitt Romney’s response to the attacks against the U.S. in Egypt and Libya has provoked new interest in the question of where, as a general matter, Romney stands on foreign policy matters. In the pro-Obama MSM, this interest takes the form of arguing that Romney is, hide the children, a “neo-con.” Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post takes this tack in an article called “Romney’s attacks on Obama foreign show
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August 6, 2012 — John Hinderaker
If reporters had covered Mitt Romney’s visit to Poland, they would have noticed that he got a warm reception there and that he placed himself squarely on his hosts’ side, pointing out that Russia’s “once-promising advances toward a free and open society have faltered.” Lech Walesa essentially endorsed Romney. Today, Poland’s President, Bronislaw Komorowski, went public with his country’s anger toward Barack Obama: The Polish president has accused Barack Obama
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July 31, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Mitt Romney has moved on to Poland, but his critics continue to harp on his statement in Israel that cultural factors help explain why the Israeli economy so massively outstrips its Palestinian counterpart. For example, the Washington Post’s Scott Wilson calls Romney’s remark “puzzling” and “not widely shared in Israel.” Wilson presents no evidence in support of his latter assertion, and the headline of his story, “In Israel, Romney wows
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July 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Friday’s opening ceremony at the London Olympics proceeded without any moment of silence for, or other tribute to, the Israeli athletes who were murdered at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists 40 years ago. There was, however, a moment of silence for the victims of the two world wars and other international conflicts. Thus, IOC President Jacques Rogge was lying when he claimed that the decision not to honor the
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July 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Like pretty much everyone else, I expect this year’s election to be decided more or less exclusively by voters’ judgments about the economy. This is one respect in which the present campaign differs from 1980. In 1980, America’s alarming weakness abroad and the steady expansion of the Soviet Union probably ranked equally in most voters’ minds with the high unemployment and inflation that marked the Carter years. This year, foreign
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July 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Rep. Michele Bachmann has come under fire from John McCain, Speaker Boehner, and, of course, the mainstream media, for letters she wrote, along with four of her House colleagues, to various government officials regarding the Muslim Brotherhood. The letters in question are posted on the Congresswoman’s web site. Of greatest concern to McCain and company is Bachmann’s letter to the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State. That letter
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July 5, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
After months of negotiations, Secretary of State Clinton has issued a statement of regret that satisfies Pakistan regarding the killing by U.S. forces of two dozen Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border fire fight. As a result, Pakistan will re-open the NATO supply line to Afghanistan. Here is the statement Clinton issued to Pakistan: I once again reiterated our deepest regrets for the tragic incident in Salala last November. I offered
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June 6, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Another day, another report of a new massacre by government forces in Syria. This time, according to reports, dozens of civilians in a small village near the central city of Hama were slain by militias loyal to Syrian President Assad. Senior Obama administration officials have invoked these massacres as they seek to encourage allies to toughen sanctions against Syria Is it rude of me to remind readers that, not so
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May 20, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
No aspect of the modern leftist project poses more danger than the left’s approach to international law. By definition, international law is in tension with national sovereignty, but the “transnationalist” approach to international law advanced by leftists threatens to run roughshod over sovereignty. And, in the case of the United States, a threat to sovereignty means a threat to democracy — to the ability of Americans to govern themselves. In
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May 12, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
No aspcet of the modern leftist project poses more danger than the left’s approach to international law. By definition, interational law is in tension with national sovereignty, but the “transnationalist” approach to international law advanced by leftists threatens to run roughshod over sovereignty. And, in the case of the United States, a threat to sovereignty means a threat to democracy — to the ability of Americans to govern themselves. Two
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May 5, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
In the first part of this series, I examined the Obama administration’s policy towards Pakistan, arguing that the president got Pakistan wrong. His policy was predicated on making Pakistan a full-fledged ally in the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan played on this aspiration to secure aid, but was never really our ally. In this post, I will consider the opposite side of this coin – Obama administration policy towards India, Pakistan’s
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April 26, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Matthew Kroenig is an assistant professor of Government at Georgetown University and a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 2010 to July 2011, he was a Fellow at the Department of Defense, where he worked on the development and implementation of U.S. defense policy and strategy in the Middle East. In an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Kroenig argues that the time is now
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April 26, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Vice President Biden has attacked Mitt Romney as “fundamentally wrong” and “totally out of touch” on foreign policy. That’s rich coming for Biden, who has been wrong on virtually every important foreign policy issue as far back as anyone can remember. Biden had the wrong line on the Cold War, as we’ll see below. He also opposed the successful Gulf War, while supporting (at the time of decision) the much
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March 21, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports this week of rising optimism among Israel’s strategists that an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations is not only doable, but would succeed, and moreover that Iran’s retaliatory capabilities are overestimated. It gets better: to the contrary of the view that an attack would unify the Iranian people behind their crackpot regime, Israel thinks it might well have the opposite effect, and give a boost to
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