Who lost the Arab Spring? After the murder of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three other American diplomats in Libya, President Barack Obama’s performance during the upheaval in the Arab world will inevitably become a highly charged political issue. Read Here – The National, Abu Dhabi
The wave of violent, senseless and deadly assaults on US legations in the region in recent days elicits a deep sense of disappointment, even despair. A decade of attempts by a series of American administrations and a handful of Western countries to combat Islamic extremism and to promote democracy in the region appears to have […]
BRUSSELS/ALGIERS: Egypt, Algeria and Morocco on Thursday slammed an anti-Islam film that has sparked protests worldwide, but also denounced attacks on US missions by angry protesters. Egypt’s Islamist President Muhammad Mursi vowed Thursday not to allow attacks on foreign embassies in Cairo, saying the Egyptian people reject such “unlawful acts.” Speaking during a visit to the European […]
The time has come, Clinton made it clear, for Israel to internalize the fact that the United States also has an independent policy, its own interests and timetable, which, amazingly, are not decided in Jerusalem. Read Here – Haaretz
As local militant groups sign on to Al Qaeda‘s ideology in Somalia, Nigeria, Mali and beyond — and they start coordinating — Africa is becoming the terror group’s newest playground.. Al Qaeda-inspired militancy is on the rise in Africa as disparate groups with local grievances find common cause in the global terror group’s tactics and ideology […]
China tends to like Republicans in the White House because it’s clear what they want: free trade, low taxes and strong national security. Democrats are more capricious and delve into messy issues like human rights and the environment. In the case of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, though, you would be forgiven for thinking officials in Beijing […]
What Obama needed to deliver at this convention was not soaring rhetoric, but a plausible case for why Americans should grant him another term—and how, if they do so, the next four years would differ from the last four, write Joshua Green in Businessweek. Read Here – Businessweek
With China throwing its weight around the South China Sea, and snapping at Japan for its plans to buy disputed islands, the waters of the Pacific are looking a little choppy these days. Time for a little high-level diplomacy, you might think — something that not only eases tensions but also refocuses the nations of the Asia-Pacific […]
In what seems an odd juxtaposition, global military spending is slowing down while the global trade in weapons is on the rise. The data are clear about these trends. For the first time in 14 years, global military spending did not increase last year, part of an overall slowdown in global military spending that began in […]
Did President Obama watch Egypt swing from pivotal ally to potential opponent? Versions of that question have hovered around the presidential campaign from the early Republican primary debates through Mitt Romney’s comments on his recent trip to Israel about the Islamist electoral victories in the wake of the Arab spring. Read Here – New York Times
looking beyond borders 