Diplomacy Without Precondition

In my latest for New Atlanticist, "Preconditions, Preparations, and Posturing," I argue that Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and perhaps even Nicholas Burns are misreading the now 16-month-old debate over Barack Obama's pledge to meet "without precondition, during the first year of [his] administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea."

On Being a Citizen of the World

Said an American politician, speaking to an international audience:"I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world. I come with the heartfelt wishes of my people for peace, bearing honest proposals and looking for genuine progress." I mean can you imagine? Didn't this politician know that he was an American? What kind of ...

U.S. Stationing Diplomats in Iran

The United States has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Iran since our embassy there was stormed and its staff taken hostage on November 4, 1979.  That may soon change, Ewen MacAskin reports for The Guardian. The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house ...

Jesse Helms’ Foreign Policy Legacy

Christopher Hitchens joins the legions dancing on Jesse Helms' grave.   Rather than piling on about the racism of a Southern politician whose career began sixty-odd years ago, he instead focuses on Helms' foreign policy: His chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was a period of national embarrassment and, sometimes, disgrace. The Helms-Burton Act of 1996, imposing additional economic sanctions on ...

Addington Displays Contempt for Congress

David Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was testifying under subpoena yesterday to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. He took great delight in being a complete jackass, as Dana Milbank details. Could the president ever be justified in breaking the law? "I'm not going to answer a legal opinion on every ...

Online Life Rewiring Our Brains

The cover story of the current Atlantic (Monthly) is an interesting piece by Nicholas Carr which asks, Is Google Making Us Stupid? It begins with the standard "the Internet is giving us short attention spans" meme but eventually gives us much more than that. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has ...

High Gas Prices Our Own Fault

George Will joins the Blame America crowd on the issue of high oil prices. Responding to Chuck Schumer's suggestion that we block arms sales to Saudi Arabia until it "increases its oil production by one million barrels per day," which would cause the price of gasoline to fall "50 cents a gallon almost immediately," Will notes that notes that, "One ...

Obama 2008’s George W. Bush

John Steele Gordon makes some very slight edits to the NYT's 2000 endorsement of Al Gore over George W. Bush: Mr. Obama has asked to be judged by something more than his positions. He offers himself as an experienced leader who would end the culture of bickering in Washington and use wisdom and resoluteness in dealing with domestic social problems ...

Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Court

A judge overseeing war crimes cases in Guantanamo Bay has been dismissed from trial without much in the way of explanation.A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday. Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case ...

Spanish Miami’s Primary Language

Spanish-only speakers have an easier time getting by in Miami than English-only speakers, AP reports. In many areas of Miami, Spanish has become the predominant language, replacing English in everyday life. Anyone from Latin America could feel at home on the streets, without having to pronounce a single word in English. In stores, shopkeepers wait on their clients in ...