Tag Archives: Obama

Obama Tries to Increase Pressure for Iran Sanctions

President Barack Obama’s year of outreach to Iran has succeeded in putting it on the diplomatic defensive: that much was clear from Friday’s blunt reproach of Tehran by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board. But it’s less clear that Obama can convert that diplomatic advantage into sanctions that will curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

Can the U.S. Woo Afghanistan Taliban to Switch Sides?

While much of the focus on Tuesday’s unveiling of President Obama’s revamped Afghanistan strategy will be on the number of U.S. troops he’s expected to send, that decision is really a sideshow to the critical battle now under way on the ground.

Will Minorities Get Enough Out of the Economic Stimulus?

Miami’s poorer residents have long complained that the city’s meager public-transit system makes it harder for them to get to work. So when the Obama Administration announced the $787 billion stimulus plan earlier this year, many hoped some of that money would help fund plans like an expansion of Miami’s undersized Metrorail system — especially a 10-mile northern extension that would reach into predominantly African-American and other minority communities largely cut off from downtown and other employment centers

Does Obama Have a Plan B for the Middle East?

It’s hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Mideast peace process. The Israeli leader’s refusal to abide by Washington’s demand for a complete freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — and the Palestinian refusal to enter talks without one — has left the Administration’s plans in tatters, with President Mahmoud Abbas threatening to resign and pull the plug on his Palestinian Authority, and the peace process of which it forms part

Bands want to know if their music was used on Gitmo detainees

Rock bands, including REM and Pearl Jam, want to know whether their music was played at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a hard-hitting, wide-ranging speech Wednesday for a conservative gathering, Cheney targeted the administration’s decision-making process on how to proceed in Afghanistan, saying Obama has failed to give troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals and appeared “afraid to make a decision.” “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy