Belarus, the Land of No Applause
Unlike other dictators, who speak of their love for “freedom” and “liberty,” President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus is admirably blunt abou...
Kim Jong-il
Closet Case
The U.N.'s Worldwide Inventory Problem
Op-eds
Condi Rice Wants Us to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Kim Jong Il
It needs the talents of Stanley Kubrick to do justice to the complete Cuckoo’s Nest that American policy on North Korea has become. The State Department wants a nuclear deal, Presi...
Op-eds
Let Them Eat Kim
By J. Peter Pham This week, one day after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates publicly confirmed that Kim Jong-Il’s regime had indeed been aiding Syria in its clandestine at...
Op-eds
Soft Foreign Policy Hurts the U.S.
If American diplomacy were delivering on its promises, we'd be heading into boom times for peace and security. Instead, the new year begins with Washington foreign policy increasingly cocoon...
Op-eds
U.S. Should Help North Koreans Flee
"We look forward to the moment when we can celebrate the blessings of liberty with the North Korean people," President Bush said in a statement released last week. So we should, faced wi...
Op-eds
Bush Foreign Policy Settles into Weird State of Denial
It's an alarming sign for U.S. foreign policy when Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden says, as he did last month on NBC's Meet the Press, that, personally, he...
Op-eds
Feeding North Korea’s Madness
Here we go again. Amid warnings of an impending "food crisis" in North Korea, the Obama administration is working to send yet more big subsidies, in the form of free food, to the totalitarian reg...
Op-eds
Just Move the UN Human Rights Council to Syria
With the Assad regime murdering hundreds of protesters, it’s patently grotesque that Syria might get a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. And yet, when the General Assembly vo...
Op-eds
Please, Not Another Jimmy Carter Jaunt to North Korea
It would be an act of mercy for the planet, were Jimmy Carter to hang up his carry-on bag and devote the rest of his days to annotating his post-presidential grocery lists, or maybe sign up for D...
Op-eds
Beware the Brokering of Egypt’s ElBaradei
Now that Hosni Mubarak has resigned as dictator of Egypt, what role in the perilous transition ahead might be played by former United Nations nuclear chief and Nobel laureate, Mohamed ElBaradei?...
Op-eds
So When Does Saudi Arabia Say Thank You to Israel?
It’s a good bet that in Tehran and Pyongyang, officials will be poring with great interest over every detail in a lengthy piece in Sunday’s New York Times, all about the “digita...
Op-eds
From North Korea, Lessons About Syria
Commenting on North Korea’s newly revealed uranium enrichment facility, and its subsequent unprovoked shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, former US president Jimmy Carter off...
Op-eds
North Korea and the Audacity of Nuclear Extortion
If they gave prizes for the art of nuclear blackmail, North Korea's Kim Jong Il would right now be hoisting his trophy for lifetime achievement. Call it the Plutonium-Uranium-Switcheroo Shak...
Op-eds
Kick North Korea Out Of The U.N.
"Amputations without anesthesia" is the headline some news outlets have culled this week from a new Amnesty International report on "The Crumbling State of Health Care in North Korea." That title...
Op-eds
Boxing Iran?
President Obama’s policy of “engagement” with Iran can be viewed as an experiment. There was at least a chance that it was only President Bush — that swaggering, unilatera...
Op-eds
Kim Jong Il’s ‘Cashbox’
Despite all the pomp and nuclear summitry, North Korea keeps sliding down President Barack Obama's to-do list. Yet something must be done. The threat here is not solely North Korea's ow...
Op-eds
A Modest Proposal For Israel
Here's the latest in our occasional series of how-to memos on global diplomacy. Memo: To Israel From: Big Brother Consulting Service, Washington, D.C. Executive Su...
Op-eds
Win Over Washington One Nuke At A Time
To: The Interim Government of Honduras, Attention Interim President Roberto Micheletti From: The Hope and Change Global Consulting Service, Washington,...
Op-eds
Axis Of Opportunism
The bad old Axis of Evil is back in the news. That's not because President Barack Obama has resurrected the label, but because he's now planning to hold direct talks with its two surviv...