diplomacy

This bastardised libertarianism makes ‘freedom’ an instrument of oppression

by News Sources 12.20.2011

George Monbiot writes: Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did [...]

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Can Citizens United be rolled back?

by News Sources 12.16.2011

Andy Kroll reports: On Thursday evening, residents of 83 towns and cities throughout the country—places like Marietta, Georgia, and East Troy, Wisconsin, and Anchorage, Alaska—will make their way to the home of a friend or neighbor or outright stranger for a night of partying. But these aren’t holiday parties. They’re the ground-level rumblings of a [...]

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Tony Blair’s nexus of Middle East conflicts of interest

by News Sources 10.03.2011

“It’s easy enough to see what Tony Blair has got out of the Middle East peace process: introductions to Arab rulers; a nice address in Jerusalem; a continued presence on the world stage. What’s more difficult to see is what the Middle East peace process has got out of Tony Blair.” The Associated Press reports: [...]

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Ambassadors as human shields in Syrian revolt

by News Sources 09.15.2011

Julian Borger writes: The American and French ambassadors to Damascus now have some company as occasional human shields for the Syrian protest movement. At the vigil on Sunday of Giyath Matar, a human rights activist tortured and killed in custody, Robert Ford and Eric Chevallier were joined by other western envoys, including the UK’s Simon [...]

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Is honesty the best foreign policy?

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2011

We live — as politicians frequently repeat — under the rule of law and there is nothing the legal system frowns on more earnestly than perjury. Hence during trials the solemn ritual that witnesses must swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And then there is government, where the [...]

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In Iraq, Turkey demonstrates the effectiveness of soft power

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Anthony Shadid reports: A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it. Its ascent [...]

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The end of hypocrisy

by Paul Woodward 12.12.2010

Carne Ross has provided one of the most concise and cogent analyses of the impact of the WikiLeaks cables release and concludes that the challenge this event has thrown up can only be met with one solution: “that governments must close the divide between what they say, and what they do.” A knee-jerk response to [...]

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Israel’s hopeless quest for respect

by Paul Woodward 01.13.2010

Israel’s hopeless quest for respect By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 13, 2010 As Israeli-Turkish relations hit a new low with the threat that Turkey might withdraw its ambassador, Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said he expects Israel to be treated with “dignity and respect” by Turkey. The sign of respect Lieberman is looking [...]

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Israel is becoming a diplomatically crippled nation

by Paul Woodward 10.15.2009

Disengaging from Israel By Eldad Beck, Ynet, October 13, 2009 The historic reconciliation agreement signed Saturday between Turkey and Armenia constitutes further testament to the positive changes undergone by Turkey in recent year. A government with an Islamic orientation was able to impressively promote two highly sensitive issues for Turkish public opinion: Recognizing the cultural [...]

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR – John Robertson: Obama’s Cairo speech: a chance to make an historical difference?

by Paul Woodward 06.02.2009

Obama’s Cairo speech: a chance to make an historical difference? By John Robertson, War in Context, June 2, 2009 President Obama is scheduled to make an address Thursday, in Cairo, directed at the “Muslim world” (as many have noted, a rather unfortunate locution, as it dismisses tremendous diversity under an all-encompassing umbrella). The site is [...]

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EDITORIAL: Obama assists in the general atmospherics of Middle East diplomacy

by Paul Woodward 01.28.2009

Obama assists in the general atmospherics of Middle East diplomacy By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 28, 2009 Remember back on the campaign trail when Hillary Clinton said she helped bring peace to Northern Ireland? A bit of fact checking soon revealed that her rather minor role amounted to no more than assisting with [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: A structure for dealing with Iran

by Paul Woodward 07.17.2008

Why John Bolton is right on Iran By Gary Sick, Rootless Cosmopolitan, July 16, 2008 As usual, John Bolton is absolutely right. His policy prescriptions may be reckless to the point of foolishness (”When in doubt, bomb!”), but his understanding of what is happening in Washington policy (as outlined in his op-ed in the Wall [...]

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NEWS, CAMPAIGN 08 & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Talking to Iran

by Paul Woodward 05.22.2008

Petraeus: diplomacy, not force, with Iran By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, May 22, 2008 Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush’s nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage to address [...]

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OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The belligerent power

by Paul Woodward 05.20.2008

Who’s the real appeaser? By Fareed Zacharia, Newsweek, May 26, 2008 President Bush chose an odd place and time to claim that talking to “terrorists and radicals” in the Middle East is like appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. As Bush was speaking in Israel, his preferred strategy against such adversaries was collapsing next door in [...]

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ANALYSIS: The realist resurgence

by Paul Woodward 12.28.2007

Gates led realist resurgence in 2007 By Jim Lobe, Antiwar, December 28, 2007 2007 will likely go down in US history as the year in which the balance of power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favor of the latter. That shift, [...]

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ANALYSIS: Talking to the enemy

by Paul Woodward 12.16.2007

Look who talks to the enemy By Helene Cooper, New York Times, December 16, 2007 Seven years of President Bush’s Don’t-Talk-to-Evil policy are over, even under the helm of the administration that crafted it. Now administration officials are openly making nice with Syria, holding round after round of talks with Iran over the fate of [...]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: The Persian process

by Paul Woodward 12.12.2007

The myth of a bargain with Iran By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, December 10, 2007 Unless Iran does something really stupid, Mr Bush will not be able to bomb. Much tougher sanctions are also out. So that leaves talking. That could be a very good thing. For years, those who have opposed the drive to [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & OPINION: Engaging Iran

by Paul Woodward 12.09.2007

Make Iran an offer it might refuse By Fareed Zacharia, Newsweek, December 17, 2007 The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has upended the Bush administration’s policy toward that country. This could be a good thing, if it leads to some creative rethinking. Over the past two years the administration has made several intelligent moves in [...]

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ANALYSIS & OPINION: A new approach to Iran

by Paul Woodward 12.07.2007

Why containing Iran won’t work: Washington’s flawed new Middle East strategy By Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2008 The Middle East is a region continuously divided against itself. In the 1960s, radical Arab regimes contested the legitimacy and power of traditional monarchical states. In the 1970s, Islamic fundamentalists rejected the prevailing secular [...]

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EDITORIAL: When reason prevails

by Paul Woodward 12.05.2007

When reason prevails By Paul Woodward, War in Context, December 5, 2007 To some political observers there is something vaguely disappointing about witnessing events shaped by reason. Reasonable behavior is somewhat predictable and lacks the zest and drama of the unexpected. In as much as news-watching is driven by the stimulating effect of the shock [...]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Evolving perspectives on Iran

by Paul Woodward 12.05.2007

Time has come for U.S. to pursue talks with Iran By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, December 5, 2007 The American intelligence report that makes the option of a military strike against Iran – and possibly the next dose of sanctions – less likely to materialize gives us an important time-out to try a new avenue vis-a-vis [...]

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EDITORIAL: Diplomacy on the ascent

by Paul Woodward 11.30.2007

A “different dynamic” in American diplomacy By Paul Woodward, War in Context, November 30, 2007 If war follows the failure of diplomacy, it’s natural that the failure of war should lead to the resurrection of diplomacy. George Bush might not clearly grasp this, but there are strong indications that it is obvious to many of [...]

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OPINION: Bush’s special talent for failure

by Paul Woodward 10.25.2007

At last, consensus in the Middle East: all agree these talks are bound to fail By Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, October 24, 2007 It takes a special kind of genius to unite the warring parties of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but George Bush may just have pulled it off. His proposal for what the US administration [...]

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OPINION: The courage to chart new ground and take bold steps

by Paul Woodward 10.15.2007

‘Failure risks devastating consequences’ By Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, Thomas R. Pickering, Brent Scowcroft et al., NYRB, October 10, 2007 The Israeli-Palestinian peace conference announced by President Bush and scheduled for November presents a genuine opportunity for progress toward a two-state solution. The Middle East remains mired in its worst crisis [...]

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