Foreign Policy
More on how we got the TPP that we got
For those of you interested in learning more about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), this article by David Deyen in The American Prospect is must reading. Among other things, Deyen does something I haven’t seen anybody else do: scrutinize the ...
Read MoreOnce Again: Why is the TPP bad, and Why is Obama Promoting it?
I’ve dealt with both of these questions already, but re-reading the relevant posts, I realized there were points I would have liked to develop but left at best implicit, so here I go again. First: what’s wrong with the TPP ...
Read MoreFriedman on the TPP
Surprise! Thomas Friedman is in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). I‘m kidding about the surprise, of course: Friedman’s support for the TPP was entirely predictable. The TPP, as I argued in my earlier post, isn’t mainly about trade; ...
Read MoreThe TPP: “Free Trade” Protectionism
On one side of the issue are the Sierra Club and most environmental organizations, the left-leaning consumer group Public Citizen, organized labor and the majority of Democrats in Congress. On the other side are the Chamber of Commerce, most of ...
Read MoreUnfair to Bibi?
The lead story in today’s New York Times is actually a news analysis, and a rather tendentious one, in the guise of a news story. The reporter, Jodi Rudoren, would have us believe that President Obama has carried his Bibi-bashing ...
Read MoreA Clarifying Election
The Israeli election results have put to rest any faint hope for a settlement of the Israel/Palestinian conflict in the foreseeable future. No one should be fooled by Netanyahu’s post-election “clarification”: his behavior as well as his words, not only ...
Read MoreL’Affaire Bibi-Boehner
John Boehner’s invitation to Bibi Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, without any consultation with the Obama administration, is an outrageous breech of protocol. But it’s worse than that: it’s an unprecedented intrusion into American domestic politics by ...
Read MoreTorture: Effectiveness vs. Morality
In my post following the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, I raised some doubts about the committee’s finding that torture had never been effective since 9/11. I suggested that the majority Democrats on the committee may have overstated their ...
Read MoreThe Right on Obama and the Terrorists
President Obama has come under fire from the right lately for his failure to use phrases like “Islamic radicalism” in characterizing the terrorist threats facing the West. Obama knows what he’s doing. To characterize the threats as “Islamic” would play ...
Read MoreThe Statesman, the Senator and the Agitators
Last week Henry Kissinger was expatiating before a Senate committee when he was rudely interrupted. A bunch of females suddenly swarmed around the elder statesman, dangling handcuffs around his head and proclaiming him a war criminal. They were quickly whisked ...
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