Three weeks ago, CBS 60 Minutes revealed Iran's continued success in acquiring sensitive, weapons-related U.S. technologies despite the American regime of sanctions. Now, the New York Times has documented a long list of multinational American companies receiving billions in federal contracts while they were doing business with Tehran. If that seems like an ironic turn […]

Like a child who begrudgingly has to invite his weird cousin to his birthday party, there are some things a president simply must do. So it must have been when President Obama asked George W. Bush to join with U.N. special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton to raise funds for the earthquake-ravaged nation. After all, […]

On Monday, January 11, PBS Newshour aired what may have been the most upbeat assessment of the progress in and future prospects for long-suffering Haiti offered in years. That 10 minute segment ("Despite Years of Crushing Poverty, Hope Grows in Haiti") revealed new investment, government improvements and signs of economic life in the Western Hemisphere's […]

Throughout his failed 2008 presidential run, Republican John McCain campaigned on a theme of "Country First." As it turns out, that country was Georgia. After his bellicose August 2008 declaration to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili that "today we are all Georgians," Saakashvili returned the favor Monday by decorating McCain with a "National Hero of Georgia" […]

As the United States begins multiparty talks with Iran over its nuclear program, many of the cast of characters from Tehran fiascos past are coming out of the woodwork to weigh in once again. Jimmy Carter advised President Obama that "the best thing we can do is engage them and stop making these idle threats." […]

To be sure, the growing tensions - and stakes - over the Iranian nuclear program are different in kind and degree from the brinksmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis 47 years ago. But events of the past week have stirred the echoes of that confrontation with the Soviet Union. In each case, an international gathering […]

Just 48 hours after Liz Cheney blasted Barack Obama as "a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas," two new polls revealed his success in rapidly augmenting American "soft power" worldwide. A Pew survey of two dozen nations found that "positive opinions about the United States have returned to higher levels not seen […]

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned to Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias to mediate the crisis in Honduras. But even as President Obama from Moscow announced, "America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies," Republicans in Washington […]

In case there was any lingering doubt, President Obama's trip to Russia should remind Americans how fortunate they are not to have placed John McCain in the White House. In Moscow on the eve of the G-8 summit, Obama has helped ratchet down tensions with Russia while securing preliminary agreements on mutual cuts to nuclear […]

As President Obama offered perhaps his strongest rhetorical support to date for opposition protesters in Iran, CQ offered a look back at the former 1980's prime minister turned accidental reformer, Mir-Hossain Mousavi. In 1983, Mousavi, CQ reported, ''had to be aware" of Iranian-sponsored attacks on the United States in Lebanon, including the devastating barracks bombing […]