When President Barack Obama announced the lifting of some of the most punishing sanctions against Iran last month, a tectonic shift took place. It felt like a Nixon to China moment. Iran, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had declared was in compliance with the landmark nuclear deal, was now no longer America’s mortal enemy. The Iran of the 1980’s hostage crisis seemed born again by signaling it was ready to cast off its pariah status and join the rest of the civilized world. Or is it? The West hopes Friday’s parliamentary elections in Iran will confirm that hope, but insiders have already thrown cold water on that idea. Not much is likely to change, they say, as long as religious clerics remain in charge of the entire electoral process. Harsh critics of Obama’s legacy moment with Iran will be also be watching to see if reform has really taken hold in Iran.
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Will Iran Vote Validate Obama’s Legacy Deal?
A Plague of Black Swans in the Middle East
[T]he Obama Doctrine…is a cruelly pragmatic strategy…(assuming) the U.S. cannot solve all the problems of the region…and is unwilling to act as a surrogate for our friends in the region…none of the (presidential) candidates would likely go back to a policy that was politically and financially costly, often related only distantly to actual U.S. interests,
The Real Problem With Guantanamo
The prison is a reminder of a disgraceful era in which the U.S. aroused the anger of the world by engaging in torture and extraordinary rendition and by holding suspected terrorists without trial for years on end. Closing the prison itself would be an important gesture…but ending the underlying behavior is even more important.
Obama Pledges to Carefully Select Replacement for Justice Scalia
“It’s a decision to which I devote considerable time, deep reflection, careful deliberation, and serious consultation with legal experts, members of both political parties, and people across the political spectrum.” President Barack Obama
Closing Guantanamo
While campaigning for president in 2008, Barack Obama said he would close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On January 22, 2009, his second day in office, President Obama ordered Guantanamo closed within a year. Tuesday, with 613 days left in his presidency, Obama sent to Congress a plan to close Guantanamo. While campaigning for president in 2008, Barack Obama said he would close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On January 22, 2009, his second day in office, President Obama ordered Guantanamo closed within a year. Tuesday, with 613 days left in his presidency, Obama sent to Congress a plan to close Guantanamo. There are several reasons for Obama’s inability to fulfill his promise: the slow grind of the U.S military justice system; difficulty finding nations willing to accept detainees once their risk is suitably assessed; congressional legislation that blocks any detainee from being transferred to U.S. soil. Nearly 800 detainees have been held at Guantanamo since President George W. Bush opened it in 2002, following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. According to a detailed study by The New York Times, 242 detainees were in the facility when Obama was inaugurated and 91 remain as of today. If the reaction from many in Congress and Republicans running for President are an indication, it’s unlikely closing Guantanamo will be part of the Obama legacy.
Obama Administration’s Secret Overture to North Korea
On the one hand, the about-face would likely further weaken US credibility on non-proliferation as it was prepared to overlook North Korea’s secret and illegal nuclear program, essentially recognize it as a nuclear state…reward it with peace talks. On the other hand, the White House’s diplomacy hints of brilliance….President Obama called Kim Jong Un’s bluff
Republicans Won’t Stop Saying Our Military is Weak
Americans should not equate a commander-in-chief’s decision not to use the military with the military’s lack of readiness or its ineffectiveness. Rather, this is the intended outcome of the framework of the Constitution, whereby elected civilians, and those serving under them, exercise control over where the military will be used.
Fight or Flight
If the next U.S. president is unwilling to commit to stepping up to stabilize the Middle East, the only real alternative is to step back from it…civil wars do not lend themselves to anything but the right strategy with the right resources, trying the wrong one means throwing U.S. resources away on a lost cause.
Bystanders to Genocide
Just five years ago next month, President Obama proclaimed a “responsibility to act” when American “interests and values are at stake”…Within days, a no-fly zone was established over Libya…Why didn’t Mr. Obama apply the “responsibility to act” to end the Assad regime’s threat to “our common humanity and our common security”?
How to Save the World: Old-School Foreign-Policy Realism
America’s deliberate impotence has depleted our credibility and facilitated looming disasters. To stop the rot, we need to return to old-school realism: resolute action pursuing practical objectives.
America’s Syrian Shame
Aleppo may prove to be the Sarajevo of Syria. It is already the Munich. By which I mean that the city’s plight today — its exposure to Putin’s whims and a revived Assad’s pitiless designs — is a result of the fecklessness and purposelessness over almost five years of the Obama administration.
I Miss Barack Obama
Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him.
Questions for Obama’s First U.S. Mosque Visit
You’ll have to forgive our skepticism, but we cannot imagine that President Obama randomly selected the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) mosque for the first such visit in his official capacity as head of state.
Is the U.S. Giving Up on Israel?
(U.S. Amb. to Israel, Daniel) Shapiro noted that the US administration is “concerned and perplexed” by Israel’s settlement policy. According to him, the policy raises honest questions about Israel’s long-term intentions.
Iran After the Nuclear Deal: Change We Can’t Believe In
Iran’s hardliners voted to disqualify nearly all of President Hassan Rouhani’s political allies from running in next month’s parliamentary elections. The disqualifications are a blow to President Barack Obama and European leaders …