One of the interesting things to observe after George Bush issued his dictate to the world — “You are with us or against us” — was how some of those nations “with us” began to assume that their importance to and relationship with the United States was “unconditional” and that they could do virtually anything…

Something big is up in Havana. So big that some are saying that Fidel Castro has finally moved on to the next world — though I don’t believe this to be the case.

The Washington Post ran a feature yesterday that asked a number of foreign policy experts to offer their first impressions of President Obama’s speech at Camp Lejuene. I found many of the responses interesting, but was particularly struck by Andrew Bacevich’s comments.

Eric Schmidt has a somewhat optimistic short op-ed in today’s New York Times, “Back Online by 2010,” on the economy and when it might rebound. He thinks that bargain hunters need to have their acquisitions of deflated assets in hand before things begin to bounce back mid-2010. Fine.

I can’t get into names, but if a crafty business journalist got on the phone to the biggest billionaires and financial wizards who support the Democratic Party and Barack Obama, he or she would find a large passel of very frustrated economic elites who think that Obama’s stimulus package and spending priorities are not going…

(photo credit: Andrew and Diane of Nemablog) I had never heard of a polar desert before — but the pic above is of one.

BRUSSELS: While stomping around through Europe on various endeavors, I coincidentally found myself in Belgium today amid an economic summit.

My friend and New America Foundation colleague Nicholas Schmidle has just published an extensive profile of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari titled “The Black Widower“. The piece got me thinking about what a successful strategic shift in our eroding situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan would look like.

Very interesting speech by Obama today on bringing the Iraq War to a close. Obama stated moments ago that troop levels in Iraq will be brought down to 50,000 by August 2010 — and then all forces will be removed by the end of 2011. America’s financial crisis is driving much of this.

This is a guest post by James K. Glassman, former Chairman of Public Broadcasting and former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Glassman was also editor of Roll Call and was founding editor of The American, and is now president of the World Growth Institute. This piece first ran in The American earlier today….