Greetings to readers of The Washington Note from Tripoli, Libya. This is a place I never really thought I’d get to — but I’m here. And after just an hour, I’m finding all sorts of things of interest.
Anyone watching the health care debate unfold this past year couldn’t help but note that it had the feel of a badly run, badly managed sports season in which the President’s team nonetheless is going to end up holding the trophy cup.
I thought that President Obama’s Nowruz message to Iranians was — like last year — excellent. I think that this kind of public diplomacy is enormously important in reaching out for the prospects of change — even if the Iran government is recalcitrant.
According to the Washington Post‘s Glen Kessler, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprising comment to the BBC this week. She said that the recent US-Israel confrontation was “paying off”.
The Dutch premier newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, has this past week run a candid interview done by DC Bureau Chief Tom-Jan Meeus with John Bellinger III, who is defending Obama administration attorneys from vicious attacks launched by Liz Cheney.
I always have time for entertainment/communications industry CEO Leo Hindery and Senator Byron Dorgan — and this morning I will be with both of them at a New America Foundation forum on what is needed to chart a credible new course for the US economy.
This is a guest note exclusive to The Washington Note by Iran expert and well-known diplomatic correspondent Barbara Slavin, author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation What Iran Threw Away A senior U.S.
(photo credit: Kidd Madonny) First of all, this is NOT a Rahm-related blog post. This is a five foot long barracuda that I came within inches of swimming into with my hand a few days ago off of St. John’s Island in the Caribbean.
CSIS is about to hold a very valuable meeting on President Obama’s foreign policy, which I am going to stream live here at The Washington Note. The meeting is part of the “Schieffer Series at CSIS” sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism.
Late yesterday afternoon, I participated in an hour long Alhurra discussion program with three other Middle East specialists: Edmund Ghareeb of American University, Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now, and David Schenker who directs the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
