Remember this summer, when we were about to go to war with Iran? Iran seized an oil tanker passing through the Persian Gulf. Iran also shot down a US drone. The United States responded by shooting down an Iranian drone flying near a US ship, and nearly launching an...
Born Newton Leroy McPherson, the man now simply known as "Newt Gingrich" has been surging in the latest opinion polls asking Republican voters to identify their preferred presidential candidate. He...
India appears to be continuing to shift its West Asia policy away from a once budding partnership with Iran, which aimed among other things to stabilize Afghanistan. It is rumored that in late...
In 1991, with the Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, the rump regime of Mohammad Najibullah finally cut a deal with Iran. The Iranians were allowed to supply the Hazarajat in central Afghanistan...
Scholar Larry Diamond resides at Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution, but he worked for the Bush administration in Iraq just a couple of years ago. He thinks that a war with Iran might be in the cards: President Bush's neoconservative advisors and pundit supporters have been beating the drums of war with Iran since 2003, when the president declared Iran to be part of an "axis of evil." Recall that a senior administration official told The Times that Iran should "take a number" in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. In his recent address to the nation on the troop surge in Iraq, Bush...
I share Daniel Drezner's puzzlement concerning Jacques Chirac's retraction of pretty reasonable claims about the implications of Iranian nuclear proliferation for the Middle East. Example:Mr. Chirac said it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country.“Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?” Mr. Chirac asked. “It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.” And:In the Monday interview, Mr. Chirac argued that Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon was less important than the arms race that would...
I didn't watch the "State of the Union," but I skimmed much of it already and will read it soon. I noticed that President Bush has again somewhat ambiguously suggested that Iran has provided "support" for Shia militias in Iraq. Rumors have been flying in Washington that the administration is making the case for war against Iran -- and preparing for it militarily too.Here's the kind of hearsay the President has apparently heard about Iran in Iraq. General Casey to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, March 19, 2006: We have very good information that improvised explosive device technology is coming from the...
Where to start? About 2 years ago, Patrick and I did an event with the campus Debate Club, where he and I each teamed up with a student and debated "US Foreign Policy: Going to Hell in a Hand Basket." It was great fun. I was on the side of hell in a hand basket (and won), though it helped to have reality on my side. Reality is back in force, and its not good for the Bush Administration and its not is it good for US foreign policy.The Washington Post has a solid overview in today's paper.On three key flash points -- North Korea, Iran and Sudan -- the Bush administration confronts the...
How would readers feel about adding these sets of questions to graduate school comprehensive exams in international relations? Some powers proudly announce their production of second and third generation nuclear weapons. What do they need these weapons for? Is the development and stockpiling of these deadly weapons designed to promote peace and democracy? Or are these weapons, in fact, instruments of coercion and threat against other peoples and governments? How long should the people of the world live with the nightmare of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons? To what length can powers...
Cross posted at Discord and Elaboration:Last week I (sort of) complained about the recent move by the US to allow Iran to begin the membership ascension process to the WTO in exchange for a further (not permanent) freeze on uranium enrichment until August, when presumably the EU3 can hammer out a more permanent deal with the Persian power. The US has refused to directly take part in the negotiations, but has worked with the EU3 in order to deploy a number of carrots and sticks. Agreeing to not veto Iranian ascension to the WTO (which has been a perennial event) seems to me to be an awfully...
Dan's post on the recent collapse of the NPT conference raises some interesting points. The recent negotiations, as well as the continuing stand-off between Iran, North Korea, and the US, leads to some very interesting questions regarding motivations, blame, and policy. I have been blogging about this issue as it pertains to Iran and North Korea over the past week, so some of this post will be based on my discussion there. Additionally, I will limit my discussion to these two states and the notion that US policy is to blame for a shift away from the NPT by non-nuclear powers. (While Iran was...