Barack Obama’s message to Libyans: sorry, the US has intervention fatigue
The natural headline from Barack Obama’s first taken question on Libya yesterday was his call for Col Muammar Gaddafi to step down. It was indeed the first time the US president had made such a...
View ArticleRepublicans must ditch suicidal smear campaign
Here is my guest appearance in the American Way slot in today's Sunday Telegraph, on Mike Huckabee's outburst against Barack Obama: Mike Huckabee may or may not win the Republican presidential...
View ArticleGuantanamo: Barack Obama’s greatest failure
Barack Obama has taken his biggest political blows from his healthcare bill, but make no mistake, his most thorough defeat has been his failure to close Guantanamo. His announcement of new legal rules...
View ArticleUS hearing on radical Islam: a waste of time, but not witch hunt
AS with many Congressional hearings, it is hard to see what the point is of Peter King’s session tomorrow, beyond buttressing the opinions of the congressman in the committee chair. The hearing at the...
View ArticleDoes the Obama administration know what it is doing on Libya?
Now that Col Gaddafi is winning, the Obama administration now appears inclined not just to impose a no-fly zone against the Libyan leader, but a no-drive zone and a no-sail zone too. That, at least, is...
View ArticleObama and Bush – different approach, similar outcome
After eight years of George W Bush, a majority of Americans wanted a president who didn’t shoot from the hip, and that is certainly what they have got in Barack Obama. When it came to taking action...
View ArticleBarack Obama’s policy in Libya: let’s hope for the best
Plenty of commentators here in the United States are searching for an Obama doctrine in the president’s speech on Libya last night. As always with this president, his exact beliefs were hard to pin...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia: there has been ‘no crackdown’ in Bahrain
I just attended an eye-opening roundtable discussion with several members of Saudi Arabia’s Majlis al-Shura, the advisory council to King Abdullah, at the New America Foundation here in Washington. It...
View ArticleTea Party the winners as government shutdown avoided
Here is my column for the American Way slot in tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph. Both sides will claim credit for avoiding a shutdown, but in the short term the Tea Party-backed Republicans are the winners,...
View ArticleNicolas Sarkozy is the new George W Bush
France’s intervention in the Ivory Coast is further proof of Nicolas Sarkozy’s growing appetite for muscular intervention. French and UN troops have helped arrest Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to let...
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