This is a guest post by Amjad Atallah, co-director of the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. Charles (Chas) Freeman withdrew his candidacy yesterday for the post of chairman of the National Intelligence Council. This development sets up a worrying trend that will need to be reversed at the highest levels of government.
(Photo credit: Eric Molly’s photostream) President Obama’s decision to reopen negotiations with the Syrians is about much more than bilateral relations between the two countries. Syria’s cooperation is integral to initiating game-changing policies toward Iran and to achieving progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track.
Thanks to my fellow TWN posters for covering the blog while I am on a vacation out of the United States. I have stopped in Haiti, sailed by Cuba — where I really wanted to stop — and am in the Dominican Republic today.
(Photo credit: G.hostbuster’s photostream) Following the Russia-Ukraine gas disagreement last December, European leaders promised to diversify their natural gas supply away from Russia in order to prevent politically motivated shortages in the future. German President Angela Merkel said that Russia’s actions would have consequences and European Commission Chief Jose Manuel Barroso called the crisis “unacceptable.
(Photo Credit: Chand Khan, Agence France Presse–Getty Images) Katherine Tiedemann is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation.
I am in Miami for a couple of days and this beautiful pic was taken from my balcony yesterday evening. I have been discussing US-Cuba relations with quite a number of Cuban-Americans who live here.
In an impulsive backlash against the warrants issued by the ICC this week, Sudanese President al-Bashir halted the work of 13 relief organizations operating in his country, leaving, “1.1 million people without food, 1.5 million without medical care and more than one million without drinking water.
This is a guest post for The Washington Note by CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies Charles Freeman. The entry first appeared on Freeman’s facebook page. Freeman previously served as assistant U.S. trade representative (USTR) for China affairs.
