From Robert Kaplan in Foreign Policy Obama has substantially withdrawn from Iraq, positioned America for a 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, killed bin Laden, avoided war with Iran (even as industrial espionage slows Tehran’s drive for nuclear weapons), and overseen a more vigorous and creative foreign policy towards East Asia than did President George W. Bush, [...]
Foreign Policy
Ducking Responsibility
Bob Woodward takes over Thomas Rick’s blog and talks about Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir. Rumsfeld’s memoir is one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others — including President Bush — distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think [...]
Why is Haiti stuck?
Everything continues to be centered around one city while the rest of the country is ignored. So why is Haiti stuck? Why has the tyrant Duvalier returned to a country that has not moved forward since he was deposed? The problem seems not to be one of conceptualization but rather execution. On the international side, [...]
Harper’s Diplomacy
Scott Taylor talks about the problems with Harper’s Camp Mirage diplomacy For one thing, the location of Camp Mirage was always a closely protected secret. This was not done out of fear that terrorists would overrun the Canadian base, but rather to lessen the impact on the host nation regarding relations with its neighbouring states. [...]
A review of Obama’s Foreign Policy
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius speaks with former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, about the greatest success and shortcomings of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The two men cited the Israel-Palestinian peace process as Obama’s most important unfinished business. Both have argued often that the president should have started by outlining the [...]
