Category: Foreign Policy
Obama, Transformed
by Rick Perlstein | Jan 19, 2016 | Economy, Foreign Policy, Politics, Rickipediaphoto: whitehouse.gov They say the president gave his seventh State of the Union address last Tuesday, but personally, I count eight. On February 24, 2009, Barack Obama’s 35th full day in office, he delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress to explain how America had gotten into its economic mess and how his […]
Ready for a George W. Bush Foreign Policy Redux?
by Lou Dubose | Jan 5, 2016 | Foreign Policy, Politics, The IntervalPhoto Credit: The Bush Center In 2005 I was doing a regular Tuesday–Friday commute between Austin and Washington. One of the regulars on the flights was Karen Hughes, a longtime advisor to then-President George W. Bush. At the time, she was commuting to her State Department office, where she was the undersecretary for public […]
“60 Minutes” Goes Soft
by DeWayne Wickham | Dec 3, 2015 | Foreign PolicyPhoto Credit: Lawrence Jackson Am I the only one who cringed while watching last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” softball interview of Alan Gross, the American operative who was held five years in a Cuban military hospital after getting caught smuggling forbidden communications equipment into Cuba? Five times in 2009, Gross traveled to that Caribbean nation ostensibly […]
Hell in a Small Place: The Saudi-U.S. War in Yemen
by Belén Fernández | Dec 1, 2015 | Foreign Policy, National Security, PoliticsPhoto Credit: Hugh Macleod / IRIN The travel warning for Yemen the U.S. State Department issued in April 2015 describes a “high security threat level . . . due to terrorist activities and civil unrest.” Citing continuing activity by organizations like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the warning specifies that the “U.S. government […]
Gimme Shelter: Hatred of Refugees is an American Tradition
by Rick Perlstein | Nov 19, 2015 | Foreign Policy, Politics, Rickipediaphoto: Josh Zakary Republican governors and presidential candidates are tripping over each other to pronounce their horror at the prospect of accepting Syrian refugees, lest some terrorist slips through. Which is, of course, insane: what aspiring suicide bomber would submit himself to the 18-month to three-year vetting process it takes to get refugee status when a […]