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By James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales
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thinkprogress.org
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Certain right-wingers are really upset (!) at President Obama for shaking Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s hand at the Summit of the Americas last weekend, because shaking hands with enemies indicates weakness and is just not done, you see ... with a few notable exceptions.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The president insists that the U.S. can’t achieve great objectives on its own. This may break with George W. Bush’s style, but it is in keeping with the traditions of Roosevelt, Truman and George H.W. Bush.
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U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Megan E. Sindelar
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By William Pfaff — Obama’s promise that the U.S. and its allies will put an end to Indian Ocean piracy had the forceful ring to it that good American citizens like to hear, but half the NATO navies aren’t going to change the desperate circumstances that turned Somalia’s fisherman into pirates.
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Library of Congress
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Barack Obama is so good at making friends. First Iran, of axis-of-evil fame, embraced the president’s flirtations, and now Cuba’s revolutionary in chief has warmed to El Diablo del Norte. Fidel Castro on Tuesday praised Obama’s recent overtures, but said many other U.S. policy changes are needed. His brother and president, Raul, is open to negotiations.
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By Eugene Robinson — In 10 trips to Cuba, I have met Afro-Cubans who told me with conviction of their opportunities under the Castro regime. But I’ve also heard bitter complaints about deep-seated racism that many black Cubans believe is getting worse.
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Not to let North Korea hog the nuclear spotlight, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presided over the opening of a nuclear fuel facility on Thursday. With Vulcan flair, he declared, “The Iranian nation has from the beginning been after logic and negotiations, but negotiations based on justice and complete respect for rights and regulations.”
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Flickr / Daniella Zalcman
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“The Iranian people would welcome a hand extended to it if the hand is truly based on honesty,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday. The “hand” has so far come in the form of a New Year’s message from President Obama, a surprise direct diplomatic contact and a commitment from the U.S. to re-engage in multilateral talks.
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White House / Pete Souza
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The U.S. led a round of chest-thumping following North Korea’s alleged missile test Sunday, but President Obama also acknowledged that the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against others and, as such, has a “moral responsibility” to lead the world toward a nuclear stockpile of zero.
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AP photo / Lee Jin-man
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The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting following what North Korea described as a satellite launch but what the U.S. and South Korea said was actually a long-range missile test. The U.S., the European Union, Japan and South Korea have all weighed in with varying degrees of concern, while China and Russia have urged calm and restraint.
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Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune —
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White House / Pete Souza
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The president has frustrated his anti-war base with plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, but he told “60 Minutes” on Sunday that he’s not looking to stay indefinitely: “What we can’t do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems. ... So what we’re looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there’s got to be an exit strategy.”
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scrapetv.com
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The same day that President Obama released a message of new understanding and diplomacy to the Iranian people via his vlog, two U.S. Navy vessels collided in the Strait of Hormuz off southern Iran. More than 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled and 15 sailors were slightly injured.
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President Obama has gone digital, releasing an online video of diplomacy to the people and politicians of Iran, suggesting “new beginnings” between the two nations to coincide with Iran’s new year holiday, Nowruz.
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By William Pfaff — France’s president has lived up to the stereotype that his people, fond as they are of home vacationing and generally convinced of their own superiority, not infrequently fail to know what they are talking about when dealing with foreign countries.
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AP pool photo / Aleksey Nikolskyi
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By Scott Ritter — The president must be getting bad advice. Why else would he offer not to build a missile defense system he doesn’t want in exchange for Russia’s help with an Iranian nuclear weapons program that doesn’t exist?
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State Dept. / WikiMedia Commons
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Hillary Clinton’s media savvy was on full display Saturday during an appearance on the Turkish equivalent of “The View.” Dishing on family and fashion, Clinton was by all accounts a hit in a country where only 9 percent view the U.S. favorably. Update: Video
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Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Michael J. Ayotte
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By Chris Hedges — Combat troops are to be pulled out of Iraq by August 2010, President Obama said, but some 50,000 occupation troops will remain behind. Someone should let the Iraqis know the distinction.
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Wikimedia Commons
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John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, joins the podcast with a status report on the spread of nuclear weapons. Cutting a deal with Iran and North Korea while getting the U.S. and Russia to downsize their own arsenals won’t be easy, but it may be only a matter of time—and diplomacy.
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Illustration. Original: Flickr / ivanatm
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Nearly three months after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent then-President-elect Obama a congratulatory note, the State Department is still working on a response. Snail mail, indeed. The Guardian reports that the letter will be “aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks.”
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NARA / White House
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Former President Jimmy Carter tells the Associated Press, “If we look toward a one-state solution, which seems to be the trend—I hope not inexorable—it would be a catastrophe for Israel. ...”
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AP photo / Hatem Moussa
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By Chris Hedges — I do not like Hamas. I detest religious fundamentalism and the use of suicide bombers. I find the group’s anti-Semitism and ruthless silencing of internal Palestinian opponents repugnant. The rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are a war crime. But this does not negate the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance to the long Israeli siege and occupation of Gaza.
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Flickr / ppz
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Hundreds of thousands of freezing Europeans are waiting for Russia and Ukraine to resolve a pricing dispute, while EU officials engage in scramblepants diplomacy to get the natural gas flowing again. Russia has accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas, which runs from Mother Russia through Ukraine and into Europe, where some areas are very, very cold.
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Mike Keefe, The Denver Post —
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Flickr / Photo Mojo
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s far-fetched to think Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state would be influenced by foreign donations to her husband’s charitable foundation. But it is naive to think that the newly revealed list of donors won’t provoke suspicion and give rise to conspiracy theories.
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AP photo / Hatem Moussa
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By Chris Hedges — Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It is meant to break Hamas, but will only breed future generations of militants.
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Wikimedia Commons / Fastfission
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North Korea and the U.S. have agreed to the broad strokes of a nuclear disarmament deal, but hammering out the details is proving to be a monumental challenge. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill announced Thursday that talks were essentially on ice. It may or may not help that Kim Jong Il has been missing in action for months.
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By Joe Conason — When the journalistic pack bites into a tasty cliché, they often refuse to let go, lazily chewing and regurgitating a phrase like “team of rivals” long after the flavor is gone.
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By Eugene Robinson — Terrorism (for the umpteenth time) is a tactic, not an enemy. One of the most urgent tasks for President-elect Barack Obama’s “team of rivals” is coming up with a coherent intellectual framework—and a winning battle plan—for George W. Bush’s globe-spanning “war on terror.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush.
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AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Scott Ritter — Now that the presidential election has liberated Barack Obama from the need to play to the fickle whim of domestic politics, he should put away the saber and take a more enlightened approach to Iran.
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latimes.com
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While President Bush may not be too keen on diplomacy with U.S. “enemies,” talks of a military nature might be more his cup of tea. An Israeli intelligence expert says that Sunday’s U.S. attack inside Syrian territory may have been the result of a covert agreement between the two states to kill an al-Qaida operative.
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na.gov.pk
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Growing anger at “America’s war” has led to massive popular protests and parliamentary action against U.S. military involvement in Pakistan. A resolution passed by Pakistan’s parliament Wednesday calls for dialogue with “extremist groups” and an end to military activity, a strategy that refocuses the country toward an “independent foreign policy.”
Posted on Oct 24, 2008
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Flickr / James Gordon
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Here’s one way to get U.S. troops out of Iraq: The tediously negotiated status-of-forces agreement between the U.S. and Iraq has met yet another snag. The current legal justification for the occupation of Iraq is about to expire, and the U.S. is eager to pass new guidelines, but the Iraqi Cabinet is hitting the brakes.
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U.S. Navy / Petty Officer 3rd Class Joshua Scott
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By William Pfaff — The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy statement says nothing directly about American national defense. It is a strategy for intervening in other countries, and preventing others from blocking or resisting American interventions.
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While Americans from the president on down were preoccupied with the financial meltdown, the disarmament deal with North Korea was quietly falling apart. Actually, talks with the nuclear hermit state have been on the rocks for some time, and have only grown more complicated since Kim Jong Il went MIA.
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White House / Eric Draper
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The Guardian is reporting that outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought and was denied President Bush’s blessing for an airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Bush was reportedly concerned that Iran would retaliate against U.S. targets in the region and that the benefits of such an attack would be insufficient.
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army.mil
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There are at least three differing accounts of exactly what happened on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border Thursday, but most agree that American and Pakistani forces shot at each other. Cross-border raids by U.S. forces into Pakistan’s territory have inflamed relations between the two countries.
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Flickr / world economic forum
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is furious with the United States for roiling the world economy and expecting Europe to help clean up the mess. “We did what we were supposed to do. ... We adopted a decent EU regulation ... but when it came to it, the Americans said ‘that’s not for us.’ ”
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Carolyn Eisenberg takes a close look at Melvyn Leffler’s “For the Soul of Mankind” to ask whether our current troubles are rooted in a history that continues to haunt us.
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news.ninemsn.com.au
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An attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen killed 16 Wednesday, though it failed to breach the inner walls of the building complex. The act, which has been claimed by the group Islamic Jihad, is probably a response to both an internal Yemeni crackdown against insurgent groups and the U.S. global “war on terror.”
Posted on Sep 17, 2008
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By William Pfaff — Thanks to Russia’s incursion into a belligerent Georgia in mid-August, a country in possession of Washington’s assurance that it soon would be given a “membership action plan” for joining NATO now hasn’t a hope of membership in the alliance.
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boston.com
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Georgia announced Friday that it will withdraw all Georgian diplomats from its embassy in Moscow in protest of Russian soldiers’ presence in the country. Russia is expected to pull its own diplomats from its embassy in Tbilisi, but of course its troops will still be stationed in Georgian territory if Georgia really needs to talk.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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If there is any doubt that John McCain is gulping down the neocon Kool-Aid on Georgia, one need only read his new manifesto in The Wall Street Journal, where he once again flaunts his Wikipedia-sourced foreign policy expertise.
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You’ve seen the quotation, now watch the clip of Sen. John McCain, either in deep denial or completely irony-impaired (those being the more generous of many possible interpretations), giving his pronouncement that “... in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” Oh.
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By Joe Conason — The discovery that John McCain’s remarks on Georgia were derived from Wikipedia is, to put it politely, disturbing and even depressing—but not surprising.
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By William Pfaff — British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was the man who said the first three rules of warfare are “Do not invade Russia,” repeated three times. A footnote to that rule would be that while the disputed Georgian districts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not parts of Russia today, they were yesterday, and probably will again be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.
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AP photo / Musa Sadulayev
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For those who never heard of South Ossetia before fighting between Russians and Georgians erupted there, the BBC’s Paul Reynolds provides some needed background and analysis, including this pearl of wisdom: “Do not punch a bear on the nose unless it is tied down.”
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