How many decades has it been since President Nixon declared that the United States would be energy independent  in six years? Every president since has made creating a more secure energy supply a priority. We’d already forgotten the oil spill last summer when the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and the instability in [...]

The continued and spreading unrest in the Arab world presents enormous challenges to the United States and other Western countries which have supported and continue to support autocratic regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We’ve given lip service over the years to backing democratic reform, but when it came to protecting our oil supply, [...]

I couldn’t resist this one. In the Arab world and wherever else there’s a popular revolt against autocratic rule, it’s the dictator who ultimately flees. Not so in this country, evidently. In Wisconsin, where Republican Governor Scott Walker has proposed outrageously punitive restrictions of collective bargaining rights for select public unions, sparking massive demonstrations, it’s [...]

The Obama administration has been racing to catch up with events in Egypt for more that a week now. Cautiously non-commital at first, we then timidly asked Mubarak not to run again, and when that ploy didn’t work, we asking for a peaceful transition as soon as possible. That request  was ignored today with the [...]

The Olympics are always a source of good metaphors, at least while they’re being broadcast, and people are familiar for two weeks with sports they never see anywhere else. I thought the poorly-designed luge track, scene of a fatal accident and a number of other training mishaps, was a fine choice for talking about Iran’s [...]

President Obama now joins a long list of American presidents who have tried to mediate a peace agreement in the Mideast. He’s getting even more resistance than usual, in part because of the failure of the previous administration to follow long-established U.S. policy. The Palestinians no longer trust the United States, which has spent most [...]

President Obama begins his much anticipated Mideast tour, with the all-too predictable foreshadowing.  Everyone welcomes his new approach, so long as he’s willing to force the other guy to do something. The Saudis want him to make Israel stop building settlements and accept the Saudis’ 2002 offer of full recognition of Israel in return for [...]