After Obama, Khatami? Not so fast, says Geoffrey Kemp writing at the National Interest: Khatami represents the smiling face of Iranian reformers. He is knownas a “moderate,” primarily because he has a more lax attitude towardssocial issues, such as women’s dress. But on the fundamentals of theIranian Revolution he is a hard-liner. . . . . . . There is no indication at this point that the nuclear program will slowdown under a Khatami presidency. Those who welcome the announcement ofhis candidacy are correct that it will lead to an exciting presidentialrace. But those who think it will change the [...]
When I first read the transcript of Vice President Biden’s remarks in Munich over the weekend, I couldn’t help but think the language with regard to Russia sounded remarkably similar to that of the Bush administration (prior to the Georgia War, anyway). So I was a bit surprised to see the Russians respond so warmly to it. Apparently, “press the reset button” translates better into Russian than “sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances” or “we will continue to develop missile defense to counter the growingIranian capability, provided the technology is proven [...]
A funny thing happened over the weekend, besides me getting knocked for a loop by a bad chest cold. Friday it seemed as if the Obama honeymoon was over. The Iranians were lobbing satellites into space, the North Koreans were trucking ICBMs cross-country, Russia was strong-arming Kyrgyzstan into shuttering our air base, and the Republicans were doing the bipartisanship approach to economic stimulus like Tyson did Marvis Frazier. Now it looks like the Russians love us again, the Iranians are willing to talk, Kyrgyzstan is willing to deal, and the big winner on economic stimulus is Obama. Anyone got a [...]
