It is too soon to tell if sanctions against Iran will lead to a peaceful end to its nuclear program, but it is not too soon to acknowledge progress Washington’s economic battle against Tehran. Every week, it seems, a success story pops up in the news: Japan, China, South Africa, and India have all agreed […]

In yet another indication of the widening cracks in China’s political system, 16 former Communist Party officials signed a petition calling for two of the country’s top leaders to step down. The gang of 16, all of whom are retired mid-level officials, demanded the resignation of Zhou Yongkang, head of internal security, and Liu Yunshan, a […]

The North Korean merry-go-round keeps on spinning. The website 38 North, run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, reports that the DPRK has resumed construction of a nuclear reactor that, once completed, can provide plutonium for nuclear weapons. While it may take another one or two years before the reactor is operational, it is a clear […]

The academic world has gone into high dudgeon this week thanks to proposals from Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake to cut nearly $11 million in federal funding to political science programs throughout the country. Via Meadia friend and esteemed colleague Roger Berkowitz weighs in on the matter in a post at Bard College’s Hannah Arendt Center blog: […]

This should be counted as a win in Washington’s economic war against Iran: India is set to sign an agreement on the long-discussed TAPI pipeline, which will carry natural gas from Tajikistan to India.The Times of India has the story: The 1,680-km pipeline from Turkeministan’s South Yolotan field, now renamed as Galkynysh, will run to […]

Pundits across the political spectrum are gradually coming around to an argument that Via Meadia has been making for some time: The United States is not in decline. Over at Foreign Policy, two scholars from the Brookings Institution coin a new term, the GUTS, for four states that, contrary to public perception, are actually increasing […]

It is fashionable in some circles to deny that Iran harbors any ill will toward the Jewish state that might manifest in irrational outbursts of genocidal violence. Such sophisticates challenge the official state translation of Ahmadinejad’s promise to “wipe Israel off the map” and studiously ignore pretty much everything else top Iranian officials have been […]

“What ails India?” So asked the FT‘s Mumbai bureau chief of a Western investor recently. The answer? Everything. “On every indicator we look at, there is a red flag,” the investor said. “This country is close to becoming the Greece of Asia.” Growth has stalled. Inflation, thought to be under control, jumped up again on Monday. […]

Congressional delegations to foreign countries—”codels” as the poor State Department officers tasked with escorting the solons and their posses around various foreign sites call them—are the bane of a diplomat’s life, and newspapers love to trash them as wasteful boondoggles taken on the public dime. Take this snarky Washington Post “In The Loop” piece on […]

Geopolitics has so far been absent from the eurozone crisis. But is that about to change? As banks, businesses and Brussels begin accepting the possibility that Greece may indeed exit the euro—until recently an inconceivable proposition—the political ramifications could be just as profound as the economic consequences.Europe has been so consumed with putting out the fiscal […]