Elections Blog

I haven’t blogged about this yet, because I didn’t know how to really introduce it, but Pajamas Media has been on the case of some Iranian dissidents who have been trapped in the Moscow Airport for 76 days(!!!) as they seek, so far unsuccessfully, political asylum.  If you’re unaware of the story, you can get [...]

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The most well-known Christian (and anti-Syrian) politician has been assassinated:
Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party radio station and Lebanon’s official news agency reported.
His fatal shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to [...]

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To counter the pessimism of my previous post, I present you with this lengthy defense of the ‘consensus’ solutions being leaked from the Iraq Study Group and speculated upon by Gregory Djerejian of the Belgravia Dispatch.  If one were a cynic (who, me?), one might call the following a bit utopian:
With the nomination of Robert Gates [...]

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…despite what some of you may think; I’m an easy-going, live-and-let-live type who is all in favor of peace, love, and understanding. Still, sometimes the news is so bad that you can’t sugar-coat it, and Iran’s nuclear program is one such story:
New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads [...]

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Has Tony Blair gone wobbly in calling for dialogue with Syria and Iran (in a prelude to what is widely expected to be a similar call in the Iraq Study Group report)?  It’s not as bad as you think…and it’s worse than you think.
The overall approach is entirely sensible.  Said Blair:
“It is a perfectly straightforward [...]

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…and I’m not talking about Iraq.  First, Hamas makes it clear that it is perfectly content to let the Palestinian people suffer rather than give Israel the barest shred of compromise:
The ruling Islamic group Hamas said on Tuesday a planned Palestinian unity government would not recognize Israel or accept a two-state solution to the Middle [...]

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in Washington this week and sat down for a Q&A with Newsweek.  Interesting exchange on Iran:
How do you see the threat posed by Iran?
President Ahmadinejad is a man who is ready to commit crimes against humanity, and he has to be stopped. My position is clear. If there can [...]

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The bad news is very bad, indeed, and the Washington Post is right on the money:
THE MOST critical question following North Korea’s reported nuclear test is whether anything can be done to stop other states or terrorist groups from acquiring such weapons in coming years. Can North Korea be prevented from exporting its nukes? Is [...]

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It is with a heavy heart and a tightening of the chest that I note that today’s scheduled UN vote on North Korean sanction is in danger of being torpedoed by Russia and China:
Despite winning key concessions, Russia and China raised new objections that could delay a vote Saturday on a U.N. Security Council resolution [...]

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Last night, I lamented the fact that the really important things like events in Baghdad have been swallowed up by the Mark Foley story (though I feel vindicated in saying that the story had peaked - I think that’s proven to be the case). Daniel Henninger is of a like mind:
It’s hard to believe [...]

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Where is the will of the international community to get the Israeli prisoners back? I don’t see them, do you? Wasn’t that a condition of the ceasefire? And is Hamas Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon?
Of course not, and no serious person thought any of the above would happen, because everyone - EVERYONE - knows the [...]

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This is a quote from Sam Harris in his article; Head-in-the-Sand Liberals Western civilization really is at risk from Muslim extremists. He is the author of “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason” and “Letter to a Christian Nation” Why do I cite his article? Well, he is a self-professed …

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Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, given an opportunity to disavow his statements denying the Holocaust, pointedly refuses to do so:
TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it?
Ahmadinejad: People in the world are free to think the way they wish. We do [...]

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The original Odd Couple, or Dumb and Dumber? You make the choice…

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Graham Allison is the the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  I mention this up front because what he has to say is so alarming that you might think him a kook.  I wish that was the case, because his message is terrifying, and [...]

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Scott Sagan thinks he has the answer to the most vexing foreign policy question of the day:
…[A]ny deal with Iran must be structured in a series of steps, each offering a package of economic benefits (light-water reactors, aircraft parts, or status at the World Trade Organization) in exchange for constraints placed on Iran’s future nuclear [...]

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Ultimatums sure aren’t what they used to be:
EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers agreed today to take two more weeks to try to clarify Iran’s stance on halting sensitive nuclear work after Tehran ignored a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meet Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, in Europe early [...]

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Sometimes moral clarity is not fun, but as usual, Hitchens is right:
[Iran]‘s been gearing up already with a conflict with the European Union first, to whom it lied repeatedly about its enrichment and other activities.  It is lying internationally through the U.N. 
No, of course, the Russians won‘t support the U.S. call for sanctions.  No, [...]

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David Ignatius says that behind Iran’s defiance of the UN lies a belief that it is ascending as America declines:
Behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defiant rhetoric lies a conviction that is widely shared here: Iran is a rising power in the Middle East while the United States is in decline — and now is the moment [...]

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If you are old enough to remember, during the height of the Cold War, the concept of the ‘nuclear clock’ was popular.  The idea was that when it struck midnight, the world would blow up in a nuclear holocaust, and it was always about three seconds until midnight.  Then, when the Soviet Union imploded, all [...]

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