Foreign Affairs

Maybe I’m Just Paranoid…

By Justin Katz | August 19, 2007 |

… but this sort of news is beginning to sound less and less like a series of flukes: Libertyville-based DMH Ingredients has filed a federal lawsuit against Changzhou Kelong Chemical Co. Ltd., saying DMH found metal shavings in 11,200 kilos of aspartame artificial sweetener the Chinese company shipped in 2005. What’s going on over there?

The Sound of the Empire’s End

By Justin Katz | August 8, 2007 |

Promising and active young professionals (among others) are fleeing Great Britain: BRITAIN is facing a mass exodus of people looking to escape the crime and grime of modern living. The country’s biggest foreign visa consultancy firm has revealed that applications have soared in the last seven months by 80 per cent to almost 4,000 a…

Good News in Iraq = Bad News for Some

By Marc Comtois | July 31, 2007 |

Both Andrew and Mac have pointed to the NY Times piece by Brookings Institute’s Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack that claims progress is being made in Iraq. As Mac stated, it is important because of who is saying that things are looking up: “two severe critics of the Bush administration’s management of the war.” Afraid…

Fatherland, Socialism, or …er …uh …Something Better, Maybe?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | July 25, 2007 |

A number of blogs have made note of the Pew Research Center global opinion study showing that the number of people who believe that suicide bombings are justified is dropping across the Muslim world. Here’s another stat from the same study. The number of people in Venezuela who believe that “most people are better off…

Iraq: Taking Stock

By Marc Comtois | July 11, 2007 |

I’m not a dead-ender on Iraq, but I do think we’ve got to give the new–albeit too-long in coming–strategy time to work. I suspect readers will just breeze on past this post as many, probably most, already have their minds made up. To them, we are frozen in time: the situation in Iraq will always…

The Coming Summer in Iraq

By Marc Comtois | May 22, 2007 |

Word is that Iran is getting ready to finance and run a major offensive in Iraq this summer in and effort “to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal.” Tehran’s strategy to discredit the US surge and foment a decisive congressional revolt against Mr Bush is national in scope and not…

Re: Sarkozy

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 9, 2007 |

There has been much media and internet speculation on the subject of whether incoming French President Nicolas Sarkozy could become France’s version of Ronald Reagan. But isn’t a comparison to Richard Nixon equally, if not more, valid…Domestically, just like Nixon, Sarkozy was clearly the law-and-order candidate.In foreign policy, the analogy is less perfect, but like…

Sarkozy

By Marc Comtois | May 8, 2007 |

The election of center-right Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France prompts Ralph Peters to observe, “I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime.” Election of a real reformer, that is. More: Sarkozy is the first top-level French politician who openly accepts that the United States possesses virtues from which France might take a lesson.…

Combatting Those We Can’t Understand

By Justin Katz | May 6, 2007 |

With the news of Russia’s slow slide back toward totalitarianism and Rocco DiPippo’s observations about life in Iraq prior to the troop surge, I find myself baffled by those who seek not just power, but oppressive power. Writes Rocco: Before the troop surge began, my friend Nabil’s brother-in-law, a resident of Jordan, was shot in…

Reported death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader?

By Mac Owens | May 1, 2007 |

The reported death of Abu Ayyud al-Masri is still unconfirmed, but the firefight in which he was allegedly killed illustrates a change in Iraq that has been little noticed until recently: the deepening antipathy of the Sunni tribes of al-Anbar province toward the foreigners of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). There were reports of red-on-red”…