Via Meadia has remarked before on the close similarities between the Bush and Obama approaches to America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, and other aspects of the active defense of our nation. With only a couple exceptions, both administrations relied on similar tactics. A timeline from left-leaning ProPublica puts […]

In chaotic Greece, polls find that a majority of Greeks support keeping the currency, yet voters continue to support parties that oppose the bailout on which it depends. A last ditch effort to create a ‘government of national unity’ and stave off another round of elections offers little hope to resolve the policy issues before […]

We’ve previously seen how everyone from Arab governments to lower-level Hamas officials have been signaling Israel that they’d have no problem if something “happened” to Iran’s nuclear program. Now Hamas’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has told the international media explicitly that the group will stay out of any Iranian conflict with Israel. Reports Reuters: The […]

Angela Merkel has promised to meet with her new French counterpart François Hollande following his inauguration next week to discuss the EU rescue plans. Yet although this meeting is still a week away, Merkel is already taking steps to prepare for Hollande’s visit. In a break with her previous statements on the matter, Merkel, along […]

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has been relatively quiet as waves of unrest and civil conflict reshape the Arab world. Could that be about to change? According to a Washington Post report, Jordan’s King Abdullah is facing growing discontent among his traditional supporters: That one of the most overt challenges yet to the authority of Jordan’s king […]

Is it payback time in Asia?China has been remarkably patient as the US raised its profile in Asia, supported China’s neighbors over the South China Sea issue, pulled Myanmar out of its tight orbit around China and stepped up its military presence in the region. But a combination of Philippine and Chinese assertiveness in the […]

Some good news for a change from the Indian subcontinent: Pakistan is unpicking official barriers to trade, after last year offering most-favoured nation trading status to India (reciprocating India’s 1996 offer). Restrictions on traded goods, notably by road, are going, with potentially huge effects. Road transport is only one-third the cost of shipping goods to […]

The White House is all about social issues these days, and a new AP-GfK poll explains why: Americans think the economy is getting worse. As recently as February, 20 percent of Americans thought the economy was in “good” shape; currently only 10 percent share that opinion. Two thirds think the economy is in “poor” shape, […]

When Iraq issued an arrest warrant for former Vice President Tariq Hashimi last year, and Hashimi subsequently fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, most outsiders assumed Prime Minister Maliki was pursuing one of his enemies on trumped up political charges (like “running death squads”). After all, numerous other Iraqi high politicians might be guilty of the same […]

In what will widely and accurately be seen as a snub to President Obama, the newly reminted Russian President Vladimir Putin has regretfully announced that he will not be attending the G-8 Summit at Camp David. Despite reports that the summit was moved to the location to accommodate his wishes, a statement from the White […]