US President Barack Obama’s formal declaration of the end of US combat operations in Iraq on August 31 is a good a moment as any to reflect on the war, the United States’ global position, and Obama himself. Iraq War: Have The Goals Been Achieved? First, let me address the Iraq War itself. There were… [Read more]
US President Barack Obama is stepping up the war in Afghanistan by sending an additional 30,000 American troops there in the first half of 2010, on top of the 68,000 already there. Other Western countries have around 40,000 troops in Afghanistan. Soon, the Western troop deployment will exceed peak Soviet occupation levels of 110,000-120,000 in… [Read more]
Reports that US President Barack Obama will overhaul a plan to build a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic and Poland would appear to represent a major foreign policy shift on Washington’s part, given that the shield was eagerly championed by the Bush administration. The official explanation for Obama’s shift is that Iran’s missiles… [Read more]
Personally I thought it would be some time before President Obama was next forced to put his diplomacy skills to the test, but just a few days after condemning the Iranian authorities’ crackdown on protestors, another political crisis is dumped on his doorstep. At first glance, Honduran politics seems like a relative backwater when compared… [Read more]
Another week, another summit. This time around it’s the Organisation of American States (OAS) shindig in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and it appears as though US leader Barack Obama has already delivered the perfect Easter present to Cuba by allowing ‘unlimited’ family travel and remittances for Cuban Americans. While this move was hardly a surprise… [Read more]
Risk watchdog has found at least one electoral pledge that President Obama appears to have followed through on since coming to power – his promise to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to help US workers. Obama is not the first G20 leader to adopt protectionist measures in recent months,… [Read more]
The ‘low-key’ (almost anti-climatic) celebrations marking the 50th anniversary since the Cuban revolution on January 1 were highly symbolic of the republic’s current economic, social and political state of affairs. Cuba endured three devastating hurricanes in 2008 (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) incurring damages worth an estimated US$10bn, struggled with soaring fuel and food costs earlier… [Read more]