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President Obama has written a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that was delivered by the administration's special envoy for North Korea during a visit to Pyongyang last week. The existence of the letter has been closely held, with the administration insisting to its partners in disarmament talks with North Korea that it not be publicly discussed. State Department and White House officials confirmed this week that envoy Stephen W. Bosworth delivered a letter from Obama for Kim, but they declined to describe its contents. "We do not comment on private diplomatic correspondence," said White House National...

The President of leisure has a pretty slow day Monday, highlighting the point that no pressing business kept him from celebrating the fall of communism 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell. Jim Gerraghty of The Campaign Spot on National Review goes over the official schedule for our leader yesterday: Just look at the man's schedule: He had a 10 a.m. daily briefing from the intelligence community, a 10:30 a.m. economic daily briefing, an 11 a.m. meeting with senior advisers . . . and then, right after that, at 6:45 in the evening, he had to sign an executive...

November 08, 2009 Obama Draws Criticism for Sitting Out Berlin Wall Anniversary The president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy. President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week,...

The president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy. In this July 24, 2008, photo, then-Sen. Barack Obama is seen greeting the crowd in Berlin. (AP Photo) President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does...

Communism is alive and well. ....Far from being dead and buried, communism remains a potent force - one that is still a threat to Western nations that value freedom and capitalism. This is because the ideological roots of communism have not been defeated. Rather than being polar opposites, fascism and Marxism are evil twins. They are both socialist ideologies that espouse one-party rule, economic collectivism and social regimentation. They are implacably opposed to capitalism, the sovereignty of the family and Judeo-Christian civilization. They are aggressively imperialist, seeking world domination. The major difference between them is that while Marxism champions the...

JERUSALEM – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is planning to press Israel over the weekend to cease Jewish construction in the eastern sections of Jerusalem, informed senior diplomatic officials told WND. Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem Sunday in her first official trip to Israel since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in March. According to the informed diplomatic officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Obama administration has been disappointed by a lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian issues brokered by George Mitchell, the White House's envoy to the Mideast. Clinton is being sent by the White...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law a $7.5 billion aid package for Pakistan that the U.S.-ally's military criticized as American meddling in its internal affairs. The measure provides $1.5 billion annually over five years for economic and social programs and comes as Pakistan faces a string of violent militant attacks and bombings as its military orchestrates an offensive into the Taliban heartland.

The right is calling Obama weak, but his wily foreign policy is paying off The spluttering of the American right — and some European conservatives — over Barack Obama’s foreign policy reached a new level of vituperation last week. “Is Obama naive?” pondered Michael Ledeen at National Review. “I don’t think so. I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America.” Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “[Obama’s] appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear-free world ... have all won him plaudits in the large...

When Barack Obama strode on stage to scold Iran for its failure to disclose the existence of a second uranium-enrichment facility in the country, his message was timid and at times almost apologetic. When the tough language came, it was because French president Nicolas Sarkozy had taken the podium. Sarkozy excoriated the Iranians for their deception, saying that the revelations have caused "a very severe confidence crisis" and issued a time-specific warning about oft-threatened (but never implemented) sanctions. "We cannot let the Iranian leaders gain time while the centrifuges are spinning," he declared. "If by December there is not an...

For President Obama, the handshakes and hugs during his first visit to the United Nations last week masked a cold reality: nine months into his presidency, he is being forced to retool his most important foreign policy initiatives, from the war in Afghanistan to peace in the Middle East and his diplomatic overture to Iran. Mr. Obama’s efforts to reach out to adversaries and break political deadlocks are running up against old enmities, insoluble differences and foreign leaders who simply do not see eye to eye with the president. The administration can point to successes: it has marshaled worldwide support...

President Obama appreciates "teachable moments," so let's all discuss this week's lesson in arms control theory and practice. The President brought his soaring sermon about "a world without [nuclear] weapons" before the U.N. General Assembly. He called for a new arms control treaty and won Security Council support for a vague resolution on proliferation. On cue yesterday, Iran showed the world what determined rogues think about such treaties. On the evidence of his Presidency so far, Mr. Obama will not let that reality interfere with his disarmament dreams. The disclosure that Iran has a second facility to make bomb-grade fuel,...

Several U.S. senators have blasted President Barack Obama's decision to change U.S. missile defense policy in Europe, accusing the president of "abandoning" U.S. allies there. Senior Pentagon officials and some other senators defended the new strategy at an Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, saying the new plan is the best way to deal directly with the nuclear threat from Iran. President Obama surprised the world last Thursday when he announced plans to cancel a missile defense system in Europe proposed by the Bush administration. The Bush-era program would have placed ground-based interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the...

The Administration has used the financial collapse that government brought us very well: It gave Congress a “Stimulus” bill that provided more pork than Congress itself might have had the nerve to include while effectively repealing the Clinton/Gingrich reform of federal welfare; it budgeted spending in numbers only computers can handle and it took command of the major banks, a huge chunk of insurance and the U.S. auto industry; to that, it is preparing to add a takeover of the student loan business and wage control of banking and possibly others. Not bad for less than a year’s work! But...

For the Czech prime minister Jan Fischer, the news came in a call hastily placed by President Barack Obama, shortly after midnight on Thursday in Prague. In Warsaw, his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk initially declined to answer the phone from the White House - as he guessed the purpose, from the unusual timing, and wanted to prepare a response. Mr Obama last week unveiled the most dramatic national security reversal of his presidency by scrapping his predecessor George W Bush's planned anti-ballistic missile shield in eastern Europe. With this volte face, the Obama administration has brought the curtain firmly down...

The very worst foreign-policy move an American president can make is to reveal a willingness to back down to an aggressive tyrant. The second-worst move is to back the wrong horse during an internal dispute in a foreign county — or, for that matter, to back any horse without gathering all of the pertinent information. A third wrong move is to disregard the legitimate sensibilities of foreign peoples. President Obama has managed to commit all three blunders in three short months, and the world is a less safe place for it. As has been well documented, Mr. Obama performed his...

The shameful siege of Honduras continues. In the past few weeks, the United States has cut more than $30 million in non-humanitarian aid, suspended most visa services and sided with Venezuela, Cuba and other of Latin America's worst dictatorships in undermining democracy. Meanwhile, the people of Honduras are desperately trying to maintain their freedom and prevent the return of a regime that Washington is committed to forcing down their throats.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Friday it was prepared to hold direct talks with North Korea to try to coax it back into multilateral negotiations on ending its nuclear programs. Previously, U.S. officials had sent mixed signals about direct meetings, at times saying Pyongyang must first commit to resume multilateral discussions and at others saying bilateral talks could only occur "in the context" of the multilateral discussions. The department denied changing its policy on direct talks, saying any bilateral meeting would be to bring Pyongyang back to multilateral talks. "We are prepared to enter into a...

Today, Hillsdale College's Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship hosted John R. Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, for their monthly First Principles on First Fridays lecture series in Washington, D.C. And in his talk he delivered a report card on President Obama's Foreign Policy, giving him an "absent." Click here http://www.redstate.com/academicelephant/2009/09/11/john-bolton-grades-the-obama-administrations-foreign-policy-record for a great interview with Ambassador Bolton by Academic Elephant at Red State following the talk.

Great interview of Ambassador Bolton in advance of his talk tomorrow at Hillsdale College's First Principles on First Friday's Lecture in which he will be delivering a report card on President Obama's foreign policy.

The Obama Administration has decided to block travel by the people of Honduras to the United States to punish their country for its Supreme Court's refusal to back the return to power of Honduras’s ex-president and would-be dictator, Manuel Zelaya, who is backed by left-wing Latin American dictators like Castro and Chavez. The Obama Administration is now blocking the issuance of nearly all visas, meaning that a Honduran grandma who wants to visit her grandkids in the United States can’t. Obama’s decision came in response to a recent ruling by the Honduras Supreme Court, ruling that the removal of the...

Obama is close to brokering an Israeli-Palestinian deal that will allow him to announce a resumption of the long-stalled Middle East peace talks before the end of next month, according to US, Israeli, Palestinian and European officials.... Although the negotiations are being held in private, they have reached such an advanced stage that both France and Russia have approached the US offering to host a peace conference

Is Obama's 'let's talk' diplomacy failing? The US has scored no big wins under his policy of talking with the enemy. Doubts that it can are rising. By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Washington President Obama may be willing to talk to America's adversaries abroad, but six months into his tenure hardly anyone is returning his call – a situation that is prompting restiveness in Congress and a round of "we told you so's" by diplomatic hawks. In one sign of impatience with Mr. Obama's approach, the US Senate in late July unanimously urged the...

Will Obama Apologize for Hiroshima? A knotty question -- he's due to visit the blast site come November and loves to say "I'm sorry." On the other hand, the twin Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings served as a legitimate conclusion to a war that Japan initiated -- with a recent poll showing that 61% of Americans support Truman's decision to employ the atomic arsenal, an approval rating that soars in the Greatest Generation demographic. Though Obama groveling at ground-zero would undoubtedly draw the ire of most Americans above the age of 65, one WWII vet in particular -- Morris Jepson one of the...

America's chief diplomat sounds off on Iran, North Korea and Team ObamaIn a wide-ranging interview taped while she was in Nairobi last week, Hillary Clinton on “Fareed Zakaria GPS” said that her differences with Obama during the campaign were "maybe [a] difference in degree, not kind," and said she had no worries about foreign policy power moving from the State Department to the White House, noting, "I'm not exactly a shrinking violet." She also defended her husband's mission to North Korea, and dismissed the claim by Bush's ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, that Clinton's trip encouraged hostage-taking and...

President Barack Obama has put some miles on Air Force One. He and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made major foreign policy speeches. The national security team is in place. It’s time to make a preliminary judgment about Mr. Obama and the world. Just how different is this administration’s foreign policy from its predecessor? And will such departures where they exist make much difference? Set aside the administration’s conceit of “smart power,” since only fools (read: Team Obama’s predecessors) would prefer stupid power. Continuity is the dominant note. The Iraq drawdown moves more quickly and definitively than the Bush...

Just the video. http://live.radioamerica.org/loudwater/player.pl?name=wnd&url=http://feeds.radioamerica.org/podcast/DWP/audio/000007_011421.mp3

Yesterday the Washington Post stated the obvious when it noted that under President Obama, America’s relations with the state of Israel had deteriorated. In contrast to the administration’s desperate efforts to curry favor with Venezuela, Russia, and Iran, the focus of American foreign policy in the past seven months has been to heighten tensions with the Middle East’s sole democracy. A day later, as if on cue, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times responded with their own editorials in support of Obama’s blundering. The L.A. Times’s stance, titled “Obama’s evenhanded Mideast policy,” is a straightforward defense of...

The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a matter of ideology. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Clinton asserted, "Rigid ideologies and old formulas don't apply."...But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries...expressing respect for legitimate grievances, apologizing for past wrongs and offering dialogue without preconditions. Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed. North Korea responded to administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration lacks a foreign policy ideology as a matter of ideology. Speaking recently at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted, "rigid ideologies and old formulas don't apply." The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- tempered by pragmatism, proud of its ad hockery and willing to consider everything on a case-by-case basis. But even lacking an ideology, the administration does have a doctrine. The defining principle of President Obama's foreign policy is engagement with America's adversaries. Much of the president's public diplomacy has been designed to clear...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE IN: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton > What the Secretary Has Been Saying > 2009 Secretary Clinton's Remarks > Remarks by Secretary Clinton: July 2009 Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State Washington, DC July 15, 2009 7/15/09 - Question and Answer Session Thank you very much, Richard, and I am delighted to be here in these new headquarters. I have been often to, I guess, the mother ship in New York City, but it’s good to have an outpost of the...

Hillary Clinton has depicted the United States as a tough but fair global leader as she attempted to retake her place on the central stage of American foreign policy and diplomacy after weeks out of the limelight. She chose the prestigious setting of the Council on Foreign Relations to reclaim her stake as the nation's chief diplomat after six months as Secretary of State in which after a burst of initial publicity she has struggled to be heard among other heavyweight voices in Barack Obama's administration. Despite being well received overseas, and travelling more extensively than some of her predecessors,...

Your chance to query President Obama about Africa: What do you want to ask President Obama as he prepares to visit sub-Saharan Africa for the first time as leader of the United States - a stop in Ghana on 10-11 July? Write your question here, and we will compile your submissions. Please, if you would, include your age and your occupation.

There are lots of great reasons to visit Ghana, as Barack Obama announced last week that he will do this coming July. The country was recently host to succesful democratic elections; its tourist industry is certainly one of the best in West Africa (not only is the country home to the Cape Coast and other attractions, but the buses run on time); it has a great soccer team; and the country's economic growth has been impressive. As Ghana's Black Star News concluded: "Ghana is being rewarded for good governance, good economic management, and the rule of law." But here's another...

When McNamara -- the "Whiz Kid" from Ford -- was first named defense secretary, in December 1960, Time magazine gushed that he "reads widely and well (current choices: The Phenomenon of Man, W.W. Rostow's The Stages of Growth). . . . His mind, says a friend who has seen him in Ann Arbor discussions, 'is a beautiful instrument, free from leanings and adhesions, calm and analytical.'" Nearly 50 years later, the Associated Press would lead its obituary by describing McNamara as "the cerebral secretary of defense." In between, David Halberstam -- who was for the Vietnam War before he was...

After listening to the Democrats screech for the last two years about the rule of law, this Jake Tapper report should be surprising …. but it’s not. Apparently, Barack Obama finds treaty ratification a little too complicated, and so he figures he can just commit the US to nuclear disarmament and bypass Congressional oversight: With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role...

MOSCOW (AFP) — The United States wants to forge new relations on an equal footing with Russia, President Barack Obama said in a television interview broadcast Saturday to the Russian-language audience. "America respects Russia, we want to build relations where we deal as equals," he told the international Russian-language news channel Vesti ahead of his landmark visit on Monday to Moscow. Obama said relations had "left a lot to be desired in recent years" under predecessor George W. Bush and reminded his audience that he wanted to hit the "reset" button from day one in the White House. Describing Russia...

Punditry is easy. Policy is hard. Okay, to be fair, writing articles and speeches that are powerful and persuasive is a demanding job. But crafting sound policy adds layers of complexity. Example: President Kennedy pledged that Americans will “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Very inspiring. But try translating that into policies toward Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Russia, China, Venezuela, and Burma. That’s tough. Policies can solve one problem and exacerbate others. An argument can be made for shutting down oil...

It’s difficult to make sense out of the foreign policy coming out of the White House under Barack Obama.  On the one hand, Obama insisted that he could not interfere with the internal politics of the “sovereign government of Iran,” refusing for days to even condemn Iran for its flagrantly violent repression of dissent.  When Honduras’ military staged a coup, though, Obama apparently had no such reticence in involving the US on behalf of deposed President Manuel Zelaya — a close ally of Hugo Chavez: In an unusual concurrence of views, the Obama administration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said...

In condemning the removal of Honduran President Mel Zelayaya by the Honduran military, Pesident Obama stands shoulder to shoulder with the Fidel Castro and his thug epigones Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. Zelaya sought to conduct an illegal referendum to extend his rule. The Honduran military has sought to enforce the rule of law by providing for Zelaya's departure from the scene. Mary Anastasia Grady explains: Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States,...

There's a joke about a man who tells a psychiatrist, "Everybody hates me," to which the psychiatrist responds, "That's ridiculous - everyone doesn't know you, yet." Which brings me to Barack Obama: one of the best-informed people in the American security establishment told me the other day that the president is a "Manchurian Candidate". That can't be true - Manchuria isn't in the business of brainwashing prospective presidential candidates any more. There's no one left to betray America to. Obama is creating a strategic void in which no major power will dominate, and every minor power must fend for itself....

am trying not apply cynical and disturbing motivations to Obama's disjointed foreign policy but it's really hard when you look at the situations in Iran and Honduras. So, rather than getting inside his head, I will simply lay out the facts.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is examining a proposed Israeli-Syrian peace plan that is based on demilitarizing the Golan Heights and transforming it, along with a strip of the Jordan Valley, into a nature preserve, or "peace park," that would be open to visitors during the day. The decision to send an American ambassador to Damascus after a four-year absence, along with the recent visit to the Syrian capital by U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, were meant to prepare the ground for a resumption of Israeli-Syrian talks under American auspices. A senior diplomatic source told Haaretz yesterday that Washington...

There are many different reasons why President Obama doesn't want to be more forceful in his language in condemning the Iranian government's crackdown against the protesters. Bill O'Reilly believes that coming out too strong could mean that the Iranians will step up attacks in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is another school of thought that getting to close to the protesters means that the regime would use that as a means of isolating the demonstrators. Still, others believe, cynically, that Obama wants to hedge his bet. If he comes out too much in favor of the protesters, then he will...

Friday, 19 June 2009 World 'watching Iran', Obama says US President Barack Obama has warned Iran that "the world is watching", after its supreme leader criticised voters who protested over the election. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said opposition leaders would be blamed for further "bloodshed" if protests did not stop. President Obama said that the way the authorities dealt with people who were "trying to be heard" would send a message to the international community. More protests are due on Saturday as poll officials meet losing candidates. The Guardian Council - Iran's main electoral authority - has invited Mir Hossein Mousavi,...

First, Mr. Obama should contact Mr. Mousavi to signal his interest in the situation and Mr. Mousavi's security. Our own experience with dissidents around the world is that proof of concern by the U.S. government is helpful and desirable. Second, Mr. Obama should deliver another taped message to the Iranian people. Only this time he should acknowledge the fundamental reality that the regime lacks the consent of its people to govern, which therefore necessitates a channel to the "other Iran." He should make it clear that dissidents and their expatriate emissaries should tell us what they most need and want...

It’s still very early in the Obama administration, but a pattern is beginning to emerge in how the president deals with foreign nations. And it isn’t a very pretty one. Thus far, it seems that the guiding principle of this administration is summed up in a single, concise phrase: “Treat your enemies like friends, and your friends like enemies.” It’s doubtful the plan was envisioned as such, but that is the impression they’re giving so far. Others here have already discussed at length how the Obama administration is dealing with Israel, so no recap is necessary — but the statements...

What Churchill called 'jaw-jaw' has produced nothing, except more provocations. In recent weeks, North Korea has detonated a nuclear bomb and violated U.N. Security Council prohibitions by launching ballistic missiles. It has threatened war against South Korea, repudiating the July 1953 armistice agreement and thus ostensibly reverting to a state of war with the United States. It has also sentenced two American journalists -- Euna Lee and Laura Ling -- to 12 years in a labor camp. These are extreme provocations. Only a military attack could exceed them. Our response, of course, must be diplomatic. But only a very special...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is looking into putting North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism in response to its nuclear test last month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview on Sunday. "We're going to look at it. There's a process for it. Obviously we would want to see recent evidence of their support for international terrorism," she said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Asked whether she had evidence of the North's support for international terrorism, Clinton said: "We're just beginning to look at it. I don't have an...

(AP) — WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he will use next week's speech in Egypt as an effort to improve the United States' image in the Muslim world. Obama said Thursday that he plans to discuss his country's outreach to Muslims around the world and contributions of Muslims in the United States

The Obama administration has tough words for North Korea, but it's looking to China and Russia to do the heavy lifting to punish Pyongyang for its latest nuclear explosion. Whether China is willing to pull away from its traditional ally is an open question given fears of raging instability that might erupt on their common border. North Korea may have overplayed its attention-getting hand with its test of a nuclear weapon one day and the launch of offensive missiles the next. Or it may be moving its nuclear brinksmanship to a higher and more opaque level. In either case, the...