via Lobe Log
by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East [...]
via Lobe Log
by Charles Naas
My dear friend and colleague, Henry Precht, in his discussion Wednesday about the sad path of US-Iran affairs in the last 30 years, did not mention that a day after his snowy trip to the State Department, the Embassy in Tehran was under heavy [...]
via Lobe Log
by Charles Naas
On the Washington Post’s front page February 2 there is a photo of Mrs. Clinton departing the State Department surrounded by admiring staff members with a big smile on her face. She already looks five years younger. And why not? The burden of the Secretary of State is [...]
via Lobe Log
by Marsha B. Cohen
The hearings to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense seem to have been obsessively focused on Israel, and on the threat Iran poses to Israel, with little interest on the part of most senators on Hagel’s views of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea. Several senators seemed [...]
via Lobe Log
by Jim Lobe
As I noted in the piece published on IPS Friday, “It’s All About Israel,” Israel and the presumed threat posed by Iran to its security dominated Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Thursday. It was the one opportunity Committee members — [...]
via Lobe Log
It was Eric Alterman who observed in The Nation a year ago:
If a Jew-hater somewhere, inspired perhaps by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, sought to invent an individual who symbolizes almost all the anti-Semitic clichés that have dogged the Jewish people throughout history, he could hardly come [...]
via Lobe Log
Well, here it is, the day after. The Israeli elections are over, but the form of the next government is not at all clear. Most likely, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Beiteinu party will form a government with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party being the main partner. This is by far the most [...]
via Lobe Log
The smear campaign against Chuck Hagel did not begin on Dec. 14, 2012. The former Nebraska senator’s opposition to war as the preferred means of conducting foreign policy made him a maverick during the post-9/11 Bush years. Although most Republicans agreed with Hagel’s socially conservative positions on domestic issues, his nuanced [...]
via Lobe Log
President Barack Obama will nominate former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary to replace Leon Panetta, according to Democratic officials.
Politico predicts that “is likely to ignite a raucous confirmation battle.”
The AP meanwhile reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be taking a wait and see [...]
via Lobe Log
I’m pleased that President Obama is reportedly enlarging his list of possible candidates for senior national-security posts to Republicans, notably former Sen. Chuck Hagel, as reported by Josh Rogin, the Cable Guy, on yesterday. As has been pointed out by more than one commentator over the last few years, Obama’s [...]
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