Tag: Barack Obama

Dangerous Addiction to Secrecy

Exclusive: After decades of mutual suspicions, the U.S. and Iranian governments appear headed toward face-to-face contacts. But mutual trust still awaits truth-telling about important facts that defined the relationship — and that may require breaking a dangerous addiction to secrecy, says Robert…

Should Cruise Missiles Target Saudis?

Exclusive: Saudi Arabia confident in its leverage over energy and finance and emboldened by a de facto  regional alliance with Israel is throwing its weight around with threats against Russia. But this muscle-flexing is drawing a tough reaction from President…

The Better-Than-Worst Syria Option

The neocons still dominate Official Washington’s policy debates so it shouldn’t be a surprise that President Obama’s move toward diplomacy over intervention in Syria would draw criticism and denunciation. But sometimes the best course is the simply the one that’s…

The Iranian Olive Branch

Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani renounced again any Iranian interest in building a nuclear weapon and proposed serious negotiations with the West. But the question remains: Will the Obama administration spurn Rouhani’s offer of an olive branch? ask Flynt and…

Iran’s Rouhani Confounds Neocons

Official Washington’s still-influential neocons are still hoping they can sabotage progress toward a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement and thus keep open the option of war but the reasonable tone of Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani is making the neocons’ job trickier, as…

Israel Sides with Syrian Jihadists

Exclusive: Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, has confirmed suspicions that Israel has taken the side of Syrian rebels in their bloody civil war and wants President Assad to fall even if that turns Syria over to al-Qaeda-connected jihadists, a…

Murky Clues from UN’s Syria Report

Exclusive: The focus of the Syrian crisis has shifted to diplomatic moves for eliminating the government’s chemical weapons stockpile, but the whodunit over the Aug. 21 gas attack outside Damascus remains to be solved after a UN report offered a…

How War on Syria Lost Its Way

Exclusive: What looked like another U.S. march to war in the Mideast has turned toward a peaceful accord that carries hope of getting Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons and achieving a cease-fire, maybe even an end to the civil war.…

Rewarding ‘Group Think’ on Syria

Exclusive: “Group think” is alive and well in Official Washington, with virtually all the important pundits marching in lock-step with the Obama administration’s accusations against the Syrian government and everyone fuming over an Op-Ed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, observes…

Putin Touches an ‘Exceptional’ Nerve

Official Washington is in full outrage mode over a New York Times opinion article by Russian President Vladimir Putin who dared question the idea that the U.S. has a special indeed “exceptional” right to intervene militarily anywhere it wishes around…