via LobeLog
by James A. Russell
The globe-trotting travails of the fugitive Edward Snowden have given us an unexpected opportunity to hear from our senior intelligence officials about the necessity of their far-reaching surveillance program designed to protect us from terrorism. But as shown by the testimony of General Keith Alexander, the chief [...]
via Lobe Log
by Ryan Costello
Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy delivered a visionary commencement speech at American University where he called on Americans to reexamine their assumptions about peace, including with our then-archrival, the Soviet Union. In so doing, Kennedy challenged a mindset that has shaped modern American foreign policy: [...]
via Lobe Log
by Wayne White
A major obstacle in the way of sorting through to an internationally acceptable definition of terrorism — largely intentional violence against civilians — was the incredibly broad definition that effectively evolved as acceptable, or necessary, among quite a few prominent governments involved in the course of the titanic [...]
via Lobe Log
by Daniel Luban
The death of Hugo Chavez has triggered a predictably dizzying amount of commentary, and I’ll leave it to the experts to evaluate his complicated legacy in Venezuela and in Latin America more broadly. The accusations of “totalitarianism” from the right were clearly absurd and hypocritical — whatever his [...]
via Lobe Log
By James Russell
As suggested most recently by Stephen Walt, a regrettable and recurring theme of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in the Gulf and the Middle East over the last four years has been the lack of any sense of strategic priorities or objectives in the region. What lies [...]
via Lobe Log
By Robert Hunter
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has written at length (Washington Post, November 18th – Job One Abroad: Iran) on Iran’s progress toward a military nuclear capability and, in brief, on what to do about it. His suggestion is for “a creative diplomacy, allied to [...]
via IPS News
It was exactly 50 years ago when then-President John F. Kennedy took to the airwaves to inform the world that the Soviet Union was introducing nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba and that he had ordered a blockade of the island – and would consider stronger action – to force their removal.
[...]
via Lobe Log
In a recent Fox News article, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin presents an issue that will consume Middle East policy makers for decades: “Is There Really Democracy in the Middle East?” He’s apparently not interested, however, in serious analysis of that question. Instead Rubin offers a partisan polemic [...]
via Lobe Log
Former Iran-desk State Department staffer Reza Marashi and Iran scholar Reza Sanati write that after more than 3 decades of “institutionalized enmity”, damaging myths perpetuated by both sides have “facilitated and exacerbated U.S.-Iran hostility.” The authors list five such false narratives; here’s the most damaging/alarming one:
5.) Shared Myth: The status quo [...]
Update: Both clips have been added to this post after the jump.
According to a Bloomberg Businessweek report, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, made the following statements about Iran during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria:
- “It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” Dempsey said in [...]
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