Entries tagged as ‘politics’
Fascinating analysis of the respective strategic postures Middle East countries are taking regarding negotiating positions:
“If there is no peace, then all those who bet against peace are winning,” said an Egyptian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid increasing tensions with the United States or Saudi Arabia. “And all those who act and bet there will be peace are losing, like us. We are losing because we are putting this bet.”
via Memo From Riyadh – Influence of Egypt and Saudi Arabia Fades – NYTimes.com.
Regarding Egypt: “They have been challenged by Iran, opposed by much smaller Arab neighbors, mocked by Syria and defied by influential nonstate groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Regarding Iran/Syria: “Even while Iran has been focused on its domestic political crisis, and Syria has struggled with an economic and water crisis, their continued support for Hamas and Hezbollah has preserved for them a strong hand in matters like the formation of a new government in Lebanon and efforts to reconcile Palestinian factions, officials and analysts said.
Categories: diplomacy
Tagged: politics, negotiation, Middle East, country role
“Ben Bernanke turns out to have better political instincts than anybody thought,” Mr. Frank said in an interview last week.
Working the Hill is no different from building a bloc of support. And with Ron Paul making the case against the Fed and even winning a few votes, the advocate for the Fed is in high demand.
“They accept the fact that I know what I’m doing up here.”The maneuvering is still under way, involving intricate negotiations outside of public view. But, aided by the pledge of help from Mr. Frank and backing from the administration, Fed officials cautiously predict they will get what they want.
via Bernanke Learns Flexibility in the Debate Over Fed’s Role – NYTimes.com.
Categories: diplomacy
Tagged: politics, US
One way to look at the policy debate over gay rights is from the perspective of the movement strategy. Building a coalition of support for a position requires forging consensus among differeing views. Some partners opt for more aggressive stands; others may prefer to use incremental or subtle approaches. When a group faces a crisis or defeat, that is when the coalition can face fracture or transition. (Perhaps this is what is happening with the movement that hit a zenith with California Prop 8 and now a critical deflation in Maine–a libertarian state with little Mormon or African American influence to blame.)
Tuesday’s defeat is also likely to further splinter a movement that has been debating the best tactics for success. Some prominent gay politicians last month skipped a gay rights march in Washington, questioning its purpose, which emboldened some of the younger advocates at the march to call for a new generation of leaders. Now, many will argue that that approach is not enough. Some are already pressing for more aggressive tactics, like speeding up a ballot measure to reverse California’s ban on same-sex marriage next year, instead of taking more time to build support.
via News Analysis – Gay Rights Rebuke May Change Approach – NYTimes.com.
Categories: current events
Tagged: politics
Interested in conflict resolution? Don’t go to Af-Pak or look at Israel/Palestine. One of the ongoing wars that seems doomed to continue is a political one, between the Obama Administration and Fox News. The latest update:
What both men took to be the start of a frank but productive dialogue proved, in retrospect, more akin to the round of pre-Pearl Harbor peace talks between the United States and Japan.
via Behind the War Between White House and Fox – NYTimes.com.
It brings to mind the McAngryCain moment in the Presidential candidate’s final debate with now-President Obama.
Categories: current events
Tagged: politics
This veers off the typical globo diplo theme–but gets at the heart of a frustration most of of experience: what to think about politicians who say things are are so, er, um, “political.” What to believe?
George W. Bush, who got Ned Flanders Nation to see him as a righteous Christian guided by Biblical principle, had a soft spot for gay marriage, and didn’t believe his own speeches on the subject. This from ex-speech writer Matt Latimer.
Bill Clinton, the master multi-tasker who never seemed to sweat despite his many self-inflicted travails, was actually quite fragile just before the Monica Lewinsky affair. “I cracked,” he said, in the recollections of chosen chronicler, Taylor Branch. “I just cracked.”
And Richard Nixon, whose dark side has been dribbling out in taped snippets over the last 35 years, shows himself to be even more cynical and intolerant than we’d already known, in excerpts released over the summer months.
via Secret Lives of the Presidents – Timothy Egan Blog – NYTimes.com.
Categories: leadership
Tagged: politics, public speaking
Source: National Archives
From the applied perspective, international politics is very similar to the national level—tactics, timing, and personal relationships matter. Budding diplomats could do well to study effective power brokers, and one of the most clever implementers of the Prince, former US President LBJ, has some lessons to be culled:
In their new book, “The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office,” David Blumenthal, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and James Morone, a political science professor at Brown University, reviewed the nation’s many attempts at health care reform to find some “rules of success.” Here are six lessons from Mr. Johnson’s triumph — captured in his own words, at least those that can be published. It appears that President Obama has studied at least some of them closely.
via Word for Word – A Tutorial From Lyndon B. Johnson – ‘Don’t Let Dead Cats Stand on Your Porch’ – NYTimes.com.
Specifically: go fast, keep the specialists quiet, master the process (i.e., parli pro), give credit, go public and build momentum, and be passionate. (Still, read the piece…)
Categories: current events
Tagged: leadership, politics, tactics, US
September 21, 2009 · 7 Comments
The substance and style of UN General Assembly speeches by world leaders this week warrant close attention. But even the atmospherics of diplomacy can be trumped by seating charts and photo-ops. Its not just that style matters, but that in this setting, appearance can become symbolic. As a result, President Obama will likely not even listen to the Iranian President’s speech.
“I don’t think even Susan will be there,” said Mr. Takeyh, who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was referring to Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations. But Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Takeyh said, “will probably be in the audience when President Obama speaks. That’s unavoidable. He may pull a Chávez, but I don’t think he’ll rush the stage.”
via Obama and Ahmadinejad – The Politics of Face Time – NYTimes.com.
Categories: current events
Tagged: politics, public speaking
Time for seiken kotai (regime change) in Japan. This is a major change from the LDP’s rise in 1955, but they seemed to have it coming to them:
The LDP’s failure to improve people’s lives was one of the twin pillars of the DPJ’s successful campaign. The other was the LDP’s complicity with an all-encompassing bureaucracy that has been guilty of staggering incompetence recently, not least by losing millions of personal-pension records in 2007. The public has also been vexed by the practice of rewarding top civil servants with plum jobs at firms they formerly supervised. The DPJ has vowed to stamp out that policy.
via Japan’s election: Banzai! | The Economist.
What does it mean for the US, China, Korea, and Europe?
UPDATE | Matthew Iglesias writes a lengthy piece arguing that the election portends badly for regional security that’s worth the effort to read, even if its debatable.
Categories: comparative politics · current events
Tagged: Asia, politics
A film about politics, policy, diplomacy and war? You had me at ‘hello.’
“I’ve always wanted to make a funny film with lots of one-liners, like a screwball comedy,” Mr. Iannucci said in a telephone interview. “I was reading and researching into the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, reading about all the dysfunction and competition in Washington and how the Brits got star-struck and were lured into it. I thought: Either you can scream your head off about how terrible this is, or you can say, ‘This is a farce.’ And then I thought, ‘That’s the story. That’s the film I want to make.’ ”
To get his foreign nuances right, Mr. Iannucci traveled to Washington and quizzed officials in Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department about the minutiae of their working lives. Among the Americans in the cast are a punchy James Gandolfini, playing a dovish general with a robust temper, and Mimi Kennedy and David Rasche, as mortal enemies in the upper echelons of the State Department. Anna Chlumsky and Zach Woods play aides intent on derailing each other’s careers; Mr. Woods’s character is named Chad, which gives rise to the obvious joke.
“We also did our own swearing research,” Mr. Iannucci said. That was necessary; characters in “In the Loop” curse with Shakespearian inventiveness. Interestingly, Mr. Iannucci said, he found that people in the Pentagon swear a great deal more than people in the State Department, and that “four-star generals are very foulmouthed.”
via Armando Iannucci’s ‘In the Loop’ – What’s So Funny About War? – NYTimes.com.
Categories: national security
Tagged: film, policy, politics
