Editor’s Note: Recently, retired 4-star General Anthony Zinni critiqued what he perceives to be an inability of the Department of State and US AID to change their operational dynamics to confront the realities of state-building in conflict areas and to embrace ‘smart power’ in substance rather than rhetoric.
Al Jazeera has just run a provocative but important clip capturing some public attitudes of Israeli Jewish views toward Obama.
This morning, President Barack Obama will chair a head of state-level meeting of the UN Security Council on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament. The United States currently holds the Presidency of the Council. I’m up at the UN now, in the chambers getting ready to cover the meeting.
Embedded video from CNN Video CNN.com’s Reggie Acqi hosted a terrific discussion with four bloggers — Adam Kushner of Newsweek; Omid Memarian from Human Rights Watch; Fausta Wertz of Faustasblog.
(Matt Damon speaking about expanding the activities of Water.org to Haiti in the opening plenary meeting of the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative.) Bummer.
Word has leaked out that going into his “trilateral” with Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama was flustered and upset with their lack of progress with each other. Obama is — angry — in a somewhat cool-headed Obamaesque way.
After a very long security sweep of the Sheraton Hotel & Towers conference space, I finally made my way in to get credentialed for the Clinton Global Initiative, opening this afternoon with a powerhouse panel chaired by the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy My chat tonight on America’s Afghanistan engagement and General McChrystal’s plea for a new strategy or more troops with Keith Olbermann on Countdown. Bottom line — Things are not well in Kabul or 1600 Pennsylvania.
She is tactful about it, but in the exchange below between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and The News Hour correspondent Margaret Warner, Clinton suggests that McChrystal is only one of several voices on Afghanistan strategy but that his views are not definitive, and that there are many other decision points.
I am heading up to New York now to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative and to check up on the UN General Assembly drama.
