Category: Foreign Policy
On Trial
by Belén Fernández | Apr 4, 2016 | Foreign Policy, PoliticsPhoto Credit: upyernoz Beirut On Valentine’s Day 2005, a suicide bomb blast close to Beirut’s seaside promenade killed billionaire former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, along with 21 others. The crime was catapulted to the front lines of international jurisprudence, thanks to the diligent work of Lebanese political partisans and like-minded forces in the global […]
Irradiated Iraq
by Barbara Koeppel | Mar 30, 2016 | Foreign Policy, National Security, PoliticsImage Credit: Edel Rodríguez When the United States revealed in January that it is testing a more nimble, more precise version of its B61 atom bomb, some were immediately alarmed. General James Cartwright, a former strategist for President Obama, warned that “going smaller” could make nuclear weapons “more thinkable” and “more usable.” However, what is little known […]
Letter from Beirut
by Belén Fernández | Mar 1, 2016 | Foreign Policy, PoliticsPhoto Credit: Shane Armas Korpisto In recent years, many a Western journalist has descended upon the Lebanese capital of Beirut to captivate audiences with tales of the magically multisectarian life in the city, with its seemingly irreconcilable elements: Hezbollah and nightclubs, hijabs and billboard lingerie ads. In 2010, The New York Times travel section discovered that, “[i]n […]
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 […]