March 16, 2010

On the current tipping point

1. We really are at a tipping point. AIPAC and its allies have really gotten their undies in a twist over last week's confrontation between Netanyahu and Biden (and Sec....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:17 AM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

March 11, 2010

So does Biden finally get it? Does Obama??

Shimon Shiffer, writing in Yediot Aharonot today (HT: Laura Rozen): While standing in front of the cameras, the U.S. vice president made an effort to smile at Binyamin Netanyahu even...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:34 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 10, 2010

The Biden factor: Iraq, Palestine-- and Israel

Breaking news: late Wednesday evening in Cairo, Abu Mazen and his buddies at the Arab League decided there will be no 'proximity talks' between the PLO and Israel. I'm kind...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:43 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

February 13, 2010

More signs of Mitchell's sidelining

There's been quite a bit of talk in the conference here about the way that George Mitchell has either been sidelined or has for other reasons faded from the scene....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:47 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

October 16, 2009

UN-HRC endorses Goldstone; Netanyahu's over-reach unraveling?

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today endorsed the report of the Goldstone Commission that identified probable war crimes and and crimes against humanity committed by Israel and by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:08 PM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

October 09, 2009

Obama's Nobel

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today that it's awarding the 2009 Nobel peace prize to Barack Obama. The announcement says the award is being given, for his extraordinary efforts to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:22 AM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

October 02, 2009

IPS piece on global power shifts and Iran

It's here. Also archived here. One bottom line is here: In 2003, Russia and China were unable (both in strictly military terms, and in terms of global power equations) to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:21 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Obama wrong on the Olympics

As a US citizen, I have to say I think it is completely wrong for our president to use public resources to support the bid of his hometown, Chicago, to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:34 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 29, 2009

Good start on Goldstone, Michael Posner

Michael Posner, who's the US's Assistant secretary of State for Human Rights, Democratization, etc, spoke about the Goldstone Report at the UN Human Rights Council today. He called on Israel,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:30 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

September 27, 2009

Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam?

There's a rapidly growing discussion here in the US about "what to do in Afghanistan." Some of it is thoughtful, well-informed, and serious. Like this piece by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:53 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Iran sanctions and-- Jerusalem

As the Obama administration prepares for next Thursday's important P5+1 meeting with Iran, the prospects for mounting a successful sanctions campaign against Iran are being seriously undermined by the actions...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:35 PM | Fulltext link (42 comments)

September 26, 2009

My IPS piece on dimming peace prospects

... is here. Also archived here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 25, 2009

Rahm Emanuel's disturbing view of US role

Key Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel said this about Israeli-Palestinian peace and the US role in securing it, to Charlie Rose on Wednesday night: You can’t want this more than they...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:41 AM | Fulltext link (29 comments)

September 23, 2009

Obama's peacemaking pledge-- to the world

Where he said it was as important as what he said. Today, in his debut appearance as US President at the UN General Assembly, Barack Obama vowed, I will... continue...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:47 PM | Fulltext link (35 comments)

September 22, 2009

Obama: Peace in US interest

Finally, he said it! Just as I and some others have been urging him to do for some time now, today Pres. Obama said this about getting a final Israeli-Palestinian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:39 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

September 21, 2009

Long knives, Washington, Afghanistan, part 2

I've been thinking more about the timing of the WaPo's publication of Woodward's bombshell and the accompanying materials this morning. It seems clear to me Woodward must have had the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:39 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

Long knives out in Washington over Afghanistan

You can criticize Bob Woodward-- and I have-- for the insidery, back-scratching nature of most of his recent journalism. But he still manages to pull out a significant number of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:39 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 17, 2009

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, "benchmarks"

Excellent analysis, as usual, from Reidar Visser on Biden's latest trip to Iraq. Noting that this is Biden's second visit to Iraq as Vice-President, Visser writes, If anything, what these...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:31 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 15, 2009

Goldstone Commission reports on Gaza-war war-crimes

The Goldstone Commission, appointed in April by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that were committed during last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:13 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

September 14, 2009

Another blunt No from Netanyahu

Netanyahu just loves to poke his finger in America's eye... again, and again, and again... Today, with Pres. Obama's peace envoy George Mitchell still in Israel, Netanyahu bluntly told a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:58 AM | Fulltext link (30 comments)

September 13, 2009

I-P: Borders first-- and fast?

The usually well-informed Akiva Eldar has an important piece in today's Haaretz, reporting this: Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will resume next month on the basis of an understanding...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:10 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 12, 2009

Malley on refugees, settlers, etc

I realize I promised to put something on the blog about the presentation that Rob Malley made during Thursday's discussion of Hussein Ibish's latest anti-one-state screed. Let me convey just...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:03 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

In 2009, as 2001: US needs Iran, Russia

On September 12, 2001, as US military planners started examining the options they had t counter-attach against Al-Qaeda and its hosts in Afghanistan, they and their colleagues in the State...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 09, 2009

500 new settlement homes in Jerusalem...

When will this end??? BBC: Israel says it is pushing ahead with delayed plans to build almost 500 more homes for Jewish settlers in Jerusalem. The project is for the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:38 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

September 05, 2009

"The White House regrets... "

The statement the White House issued yesterday in response to Netanyahu's announcement that he would unleash the construction of hundreds of additional settler housing units before he considered submitting to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:02 AM | Fulltext link (48 comments)

August 23, 2009

Hints of Obama's peace plan--but a notable J. Diehl mistake

Jackson Diehl broke some important news in today's WaPo: As the U.N. General Assembly meets in late September, Obama aims to announce the opening of a new negotiating process between...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:19 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

August 19, 2009

Obama, Afghanistan-- and St. Augustine

Pres. Obama gave a speech to the veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention on Monday in which he spelled out his view of the US's now-declining strategic stakes in Iraq...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:29 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 18, 2009

Iran: Ready or not to talk? Washington: Ready or not?

In an amazing display of very late-night-- or very early-morning-- blogging, Laura Rozen put a post up this morning showcasing a Reuters report that Iran's ambassador to the IAEA in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:37 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 15, 2009

The definitive word on 'confidence building measures'

... comes from Ezzedine Choukri in this great piece in Al-Ahram Weekly. (HT: Abdulmoneim Said Aly at MEI on Thursday.) Choukri's piece is an excellent illustration of the thinking by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:48 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 11, 2009

Peacemaking with Israel-- the Gulf Arab dimension

My latest news analysis for IPS is just out. (Also, here.) The title the IPS editor gave it was Saudi Arabia May Not Follow Obama’s Plan. Not a bad summary...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:11 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 04, 2009

Is this gnome running US Mideast diplomacy?

It turns out there's a popular figure in some portions of US popular culture called "the underpants gnome." The underpants gnome has a "business plan" that consists of three phases....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:47 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 01, 2009

IPS piece on Obama, Jewish Israelis, and Jewish Americans

... here. Also archived here. Actually, right now the archived version is the definitive one, because I lost a few words from the version I'd sent to my excellent editor...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:47 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Just how inept is Ross as a 'Mideast expert'??

Short answer: extremely. In case anyone is in any doubt, they should read the transcript of what Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at the end of his meeting...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:54 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

July 22, 2009

How occupations end

We here in Washington DC currently have a front-seat view of how a country undertakes the ending of the military occupation by its ground forces of another country's territory. Today,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:15 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 08, 2009

Obama reading JWN, responding well?

Back on Sunday (July 5), I blogged about Joe Biden's "loose lips" statements that seemed to many Middle Easterners to give Israel a green light to attack Iran. I ended...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:31 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

July 05, 2009

Joe Biden's loose lips

When Barack Obama first named Joe Biden as his running-mate, Washington insiders noted that what Biden is best known for running is his gab-too-much motor-mouth. Too often it seems there...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:21 PM | Fulltext link (40 comments)

June 25, 2009

How effective is Obama's Palestine policy?

I have been among the many criticizing Obama for moving WAYS too slowly on Arab-Israeli and specifically Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. However, evidence is now emerging that his "slow and steady" approach...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:05 PM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

June 24, 2009

US, Syria, Iran, Hamas

The Obama administration has decided to return a US ambassador to Syria, the WaPo's Scott Wilson reports today. This is a long overdue move-- see below. However, the timing of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

June 22, 2009

Plus, he cooks daal and reads Urdu poetry?

Is our president a phenomenal mutli-culturalist or what?? Not only he has Kenyan relatives, grew up in gloriously multi-culti Hawaii, went to school in Indonesia and speaks some Bahasa Indonesia,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:12 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

June 19, 2009

I can now reveal...

... that it was Sen. Mitchell with whom Pres. Carter met yesterday. The updated version of the IPS piece has now been posted, at the same URL. It'll take me...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:19 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

June 15, 2009

Ross, moving on-- to where?

When a high-level US official dealing with Middle East affairs gets "reassigned", why I am not surprised that the story gets broken in Israel before any murmur of it emerges...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:20 AM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

June 13, 2009

Syrian negotiations with Israel: the short version

So presidential envoy George Mitchell has now had his meeting with Pres. Bashar al-Asad in Damascus. Afterwards he said, ""We are well aware of the many difficulties ... yet we...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:40 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 12, 2009

Mitchell mission getting very serious

Most people in the western MSM have for some days now seemed strongly fixated on the elections in Iran. (And my thanks to Scott Harrop for getting his excellent post...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:37 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

June 10, 2009

WaPo's Kessler pulls punches on Ross

The WaPo's Glenn Kessler had an article today in which he deals with the topic of Dennis Ross's objectivity and the appropriateness of having this person, of all available people,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:40 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 03, 2009

Washington's new tone on Islamist political parties

Two excellent initiatives by the Obama administration in the lead-up to The Speech tomorrow. They've made a point of inviting members of the Egyptian parliament affiliated with the long banned...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:05 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

Big days ahead for the Middle East...

Tomorrow, Pres. Obama will give his much-awaited address "to the Muslim world" in Cairo. On Sunday, Lebanon holds parliamentary elections-- and Iran holds its elections June 12. I'm in Damascus...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:02 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 01, 2009

On settlements

I've just been catching up with Helene Cooper's piece in the NYT yesterday on Obama and the Israeli settlement freeze. She concludes: When asked on Thursday what he would do...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:43 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

Obama-Mitchell peace mission gains a little momentum

Haaretz's Barak Ravid had more details yesterday of the meeting an official Israeli delegation held in London last Tuesday with Obama's special Mideast peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell and his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:34 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 28, 2009

George Mitchell is doing what??

In this piece on the Israeli settlements issue in the NYT today, Isabel Kershner and Mark Landler report this: Mr. Mitchell has been negotiating reciprocal measures with Israel’s Arab neighbors,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:05 PM | Fulltext link (64 comments)

May 26, 2009

Does Obama understand Israel's war goal in Iran?

If Israel launches a military attack (= act of war) against Iran, what would the main goal of this attack be? There is good reason to believe that the goal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:23 AM | Fulltext link (88 comments)

May 21, 2009

Why Israel's 'natural growth' claim is dishonest: Four reasons

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Tuesday, Secretary Clinton unequivocally called on Israel to halt all construction activity connected with its settlement project in the occupied West Bank. She said, First,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:03 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 09, 2009

Obama and Israel's nukes

My IPS news analysis piece yesterday was on the Obama administration's intriguing injection of Israel's nuclear weapons into the global and regional diplomacy. It's here (and here.) The piece attempts...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:10 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

May 07, 2009

White House (still) guiding Middle East policy

After George Mitchell's appointment as Israeli-Arab peace envoy was announced January 22, I noted (also here) that the way it had happened indicated he would be reporting to both the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:09 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

May 01, 2009

Another Scary Terror Report

The new annual State Department Report on Terrorism is out. It's primarily the same as last year's report. You were expecting changes maybe? Here are the lead paragraphs from last...
Posted by Don Bacon at 11:12 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

April 29, 2009

Obama opens timid discussion with Congress on Hamas

The Obama administration has launched a tiny first discussion with Congress over the issue of dealing with Hamas. Administration officials did this, according to this piece in Monday's LA Times...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 24, 2009

IPS piece on coming Obama-Netanyahu spat

It's out today, here (and archived here.) My sense of these two guys is that right now they're circling each other warily like massive Sumo wrestlers before a match. Who...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:12 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

April 19, 2009

Tragic Obama administration cave over Durban review conference

The State Department issued a terse statement yesterday explaining that the US would not be represented at the Durban review Conference being held this week in Geneva. The statement gives...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:25 PM | Fulltext link (34 comments)

April 18, 2009

Mitchell revs up mission

It's been almost three months since, at that January 22 event at the State Department, Sec. Clinton announced the appointment of former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell as "special envoy...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:39 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 08, 2009

Let's Be Patient

President Obama in Iraq: This is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months. Three Friedman Units. from Wikipedia: The term [Friedman Unit] is in reference to a...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:50 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

April 06, 2009

Obama's rockin' first world tour-- and call for action

He's been doing so well, and it's churlish of me not to have mentioned it before. (I've been busy.) But oh man, it really feels great no longer to have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:13 PM | Fulltext link (100 comments)

A Turning Point?

from President Obama's press conference on the results of the recently concluded G20 Summit Meeting in London: Earlier today, we finished a very productive summit that will be, I believe,...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:30 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 28, 2009

Play It Again, Barry

I thought it might be interesting to look at two speeches, comparing President Obama's speech on Afghanistan Friday to President Nixon's Vietnamization speech on November 3, 1969. Comparative excerpts follow....
Posted by Don Bacon at 11:55 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

March 20, 2009

Obama's NowRuz Message: "A New Beginning"

About an hour ago, the White House web site released a startling video message from President Obama to all those who celebrate NowRuz, the (Persian) New Year. Taking advantage of...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 01:01 AM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

March 19, 2009

Palestine Question now absent from Obama's agenda

The Palestine Question now appears to have fallen off Pres. Obama's agenda. In his early days in office he took some impressive steps toward principles-based and constructive engagement in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:46 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

March 10, 2009

Chas Freeman falls on his sword

Chas Freeman is a brilliant man who has a fine ability to understand international affairs and to assess the quality of intelligence estimates on global affairs. Today, after assessing the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:55 PM | Fulltext link (53 comments)

February 27, 2009

Climate of Change?

In a recent NYTimes article entitled "Climate of Change" Paul Krugman wrote: Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:32 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 24, 2009

Dennis Ross as Clinton 'special adviser': Outrageous

The State Department yesterday announced the appointment of Dennis Ross as "Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and Southwest Asia." The designation of Ross's geographic purview...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:05 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

February 22, 2009

Black is Black, I Want My Barry Back

NOTE: Helena and I have been thinking quite independently along similar lines, which is not an isolated occurrence. Approximately half of the CIA budget is reportedly devoted not to intelligence...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:01 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

February 21, 2009

US and Israel: End 'Manhunting' now!

Pres. Obama has apparently 'seen the light' regarding one of the anti-humane and illegal practices instituted by the Bush administration in its "Global war on terror": the use of Guantanamo...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:49 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 20, 2009

Chas Freeman to NIC; Mitchell Twittered

My IPS colleague Jim Lobe seems to have it pretty firm that Chas Freeman, the very distinguished former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and before that Nixon-era DCM in China...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:32 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

February 05, 2009

Obama @ Prayer Breakfast

Despite his hesitance to say anything "principled" ahead of Israel's upcoming elections, President Obama today did remind us of a profound truth about all major faiths at this morning's National...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:38 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

Gaza ceasefire-consolidation talks update

I've been busy recently: I've been in New York with editors and (separately) the new grandbaby... Also, preparing for my next reporting trip to the Middle East, which starts this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:10 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 04, 2009

Obama: What if this happened to your girls?

When he was on the campaign trail, Pres. Obama gave Israel nearly "carte blanche" to act as it wanted against Gaza by saying-- in southern Israel-- that if his daughters...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:33 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

February 01, 2009

Obama, act now for peace and humanity!

When Israel was still bombing Gaza full-bore, back until two days before the end of George Bush's presidency, president-elect Barack Obama said he did not want to adopt any kind...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:43 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

January 30, 2009

My IPS analysis on Obama's Middle East policy so far

Read it here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:50 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

January 29, 2009

Insight on George Mitchell

I had a really informative talk yesterday with Shelley Deane, a prof at Bowdoin College in Maine who's one of the world's leading "George Mitchell scholars." An Irish citizen, Deane...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:24 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

Possible US military attack against Somalia? Not again!!

Steve Clemons and Bernhard of Moon of Alabama have both been writing about the possibility that the new Obama administration might launch some form of attack against ground targets in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:34 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

January 28, 2009

If there is a viable two-state solution in Israel/Palestine...

... then my judgment is that it will lie somewhere between the cluster of 'plans' that emerged between December 2000 and mid-2003-- the 'Clinton parameters', 'Geneva Accord', and 'Nuseibeh-Ayalon Plan',...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 AM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

January 27, 2009

Why this American peace diplomacy is different

Many people, including Chris Toensing and Mouin Rabbani at Merip and many of the commenters here at JWN, find it hard to believe that Barack Obama's Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy will...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:47 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

Obama continues to move fast, surefootedly...

...on Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Yesterday he gave an interview to Hisham Milhem of al-Arabiya TV channel. That was in connection with the ceremony at the White House where he sent off...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:59 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

January 23, 2009

IPS articles from Syria and Washington, DC

I've been really busy these past couple of weeks-- plus, figuring out too much new technology. So, to catch up a little, here are the last two pieces of News...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:36 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

January 22, 2009

Obama moves fast on M.E. diplomacy

I just read the transcript of Pres. Obama's address at the State Department today. That's the one where he appointed former Sen. George Mitchell as Special Envoy for Middle East...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:05 PM | Fulltext link (45 comments)

January 20, 2009

Inaugurating

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as our president at noon today-- Hurrah! ... Four hours before that, I and four (mainly Quaker) friends from Charlottesville who slept over in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:07 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

January 19, 2009

Palestinian politics and the rest of the war's political endgame

This morning the time-expired PA president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fateh, called for the establishment of a Palestinian national unity government. The political endgame of Israel's 22-Day War against Gaza has...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:37 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

January 09, 2009

Obama's grandfather, the British in Kenya, and Gaza today

Barack Obama's Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, became involved with the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after World War 2. Reporters for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:11 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

December 14, 2008

My CSM piece on Obama, America, and the world

... is here. Also, archived here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:39 PM | Fulltext link (24 comments)

Obama and Arab-Israeli diplomacy

There has been a lot of speculation in Washington these past weeks about the content of the Arab-Israeli stance we might expect to see from the Obama administration. I have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:51 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

December 08, 2008

Obama on Iraq: before and after

After a spirited exchange with Alex regarding what Barack Obama's plans might be for Iraq, I thought it would be informative to look at Obama's remarks before and after the...
Posted by Don Bacon at 05:23 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

December 03, 2008

Welcome new thinking on the Palestine Question

In Washington today former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset Naomi Chazan had some great advice for President-elect Obama. Noting that Israel's election comes just 20 days after Obama's inauguration,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

December 01, 2008

Obama's foreign affairs team and Arab-Israel diplomacy

His foreign affairs team comes, now, as no surprise. But what was welcome in his speech in Chicago today was the prominent mention he made of the need to find...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:40 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

November 19, 2008

Mr. Obama, tear down this war!

Mr. Obama, tear down this war! You have promised change and the "Global War on Terror" (GWOT) is the worst legacy of the Bush administration. You should denounce it. Unfortunately,...
Posted by Don Bacon at 11:12 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

November 17, 2008

Prunier on Laurent Nkunda and the DRC crisis

The veteran French expert on central Africa Gerard Prunier has an excellent piece on Open Democracy today that pulls together a lot of the essential political background to the tragically...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:58 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

November 13, 2008

R. Emanuel apologizes for dad's racist comments

Today, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who will be Barack Obama's chief of staff in the White House, called up the president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), former Congresswoman Mary Rose...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:02 PM | Fulltext link (102 comments)

November 10, 2008

Let's see the audacity in Obama's Mideast policy, too!

I loved Paul Krugman's column in the NYT today. He was arguing that Barack Obama could learn a lot from studying the record of the "New Deal" policies enacted by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:32 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

November 08, 2008

More on R. Emanuel and US Mideast policy

In this post yesterday I wrote that Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's pick as WH chief of staff, was a dual, Israeli and US citizen. And I added, There is a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:15 PM | Fulltext link (53 comments)

Requirements for Obama appointees

Obama had almost certainly picked on Rahm Emanuel as his WH chief of staff even before last Tuesday. But he told us yesterday that the next appointees-- which will be...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)