A very good insight of what could be called the “Beltway Bubble†on foreign-policy thinking can be gained by a study of the September 19 National Journal’s “Insiders Poll†in which 115 Democratic and 116 Republican “insiders†ranked prominent columnists,...
The same neo-conservatives (and some new ones like Sarah Palin(!), plus Amb. Ryan Crocker) who created the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) 12 years ago and subsequently campaigned ceaselessly for the ouster and invasion of Iraq have just called on Pres....
Guest post by Daniel Luban: On Tuesday, Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh of AEI published a New York Times op-ed claiming that the real and unnoticed story of the Iranian elections is that the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have “effected a silent coup d’etatâ€...
Read this statement by Human Rights Watch that was released late Friday and ask yourself how Washington should react to Netanyahu’s claims that families in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be to entitled to “natural growth.†One...
A guest post from Daniel Luban: I have no desire to bore the reader with endless discussion of the Amalek controversy, so I will just weigh in with one final comment on the controversy and Jeffrey Goldberg’s response to it. First, Andrew Sullivan’s post on the...
Everyone knows that the Israelis are pressing hard for the Obama administration to set a a relatively short-term deadline for progress in its prospective diplomatic engagement with Iran to bear fruit, after which it would move to tighten sanctions, hopefully in...
It’s quite clear that a major battle has erupted over the appointment of Chas Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which, among other things, is charged with putting together the consensus judgments, called National Intelligence Estimates...
Since Secretary of State Clinton set out for the Middle East over the weekend, it has seemed increasingly clear to me that Dennis Ross, contrary to my earlier speculation, pretty much got the job that he and WINEP were hoping for. Not only has he claimed an office on...
The more one looks into it, the more Elliott Abrams’ rendition of how Iran allegedly smuggles weapons to Hamas in Gaza via Somalia and Eritrea just gets weirder and weirder. Remember: he was Bush’s top Middle East adviser from December, 2002, until January 20 and,...
Dennis Ross’ appointment was finally announced today. This appeared as a “press release†on the State Department’s website late this afternoon: Appointment of Dennis Ross as Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia Robert Wood Acting Department...
