I just had the privilege of attending the swearing-in ceremony for my old friend David Huebner as the next US Ambassador to New Zealand. Demonstrating the importance of this appointment to the White House, Vice President Joe Biden gave the oath to the openly gay lawyer turned diplomat.
Peter Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation as well as the co-director of New America’s Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative, where Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst. This post was originally published at the AfPakChannel.
Al Majalla, the Arab magazine, recently published a special report on Turkey called “7 years of AKP Rule.” The report provides a variety of perspectives on Turkey’s political situation and the impact of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) seven years in power.
If one thing was obvious about President Obama’s speech on Tuesday night it was how complex the United States’ challenges in South Asia are.
Amidst the analysis of Turkey’s “eastern turn” and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) alleged ambivalence toward Europe, the ongoing political conflict among Turkey, Greece, Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, and the European Union over Cyprus remains the largest obstacle to Turkey’s European Union accession.
Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force. Watching Al Jazeera English following President Obama’s Afghan speech, I was struck by Riz Kahn’s question about where Special Representative Richard Holbrooke fits into all of this.
This is a guest note by British Ambassador to Cuba Dianna Melrose.
As part of the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program‘s new media roundtable series, I am hosting a small roundtable discussion today with British Council CEO Martin Davidson and British Council Board Member and communications expert Raoul Shah. The event will run from 3pm to 4pm EST and will stream live here at The Washington Note….
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Here are some of my early thoughts on President Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan “Way Forward” speech from a clip I did with Keith Olbermann on Countdown tonight. I said 40,000 troops in my opening comments when I meant 30,000 troops.
This is a guest note by former Department of State Chief of Staff Lawrence B. Wilkerson. Wilkerson is the Pamela C. Harriman Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William Mary Damned if You Do and Damned If You Don’t President Obama is in a corner.
