The Arab Spring may be becoming a long hot summer. In the President’s major speech on the Middle East yesterday, it seemed pretty clear that he has moved on from Libya and turned his attention back to the Arab–Israeli peace process. Attention deficit disorder, however, may not be the right answer. There is a disturbing news report that two men arrested in Tunisia were “suspected of being members of al-Qaeda.” They were picked up near the Libyan border “carrying an explosives belt and several bombs, a security source told Reuters.… …
After Osama bin Laden’s death, it is clear that the war on terrorism is not over. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former al-Qaeda’s number two, may take over as bin Laden’s heir, unless the interim operations leader Saif al-Adel, the former Egyptian commando with Iranian ties, gets the job. In the meantime, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most active and dangerous of al-Qaeda affiliate terrorist organizations, has embarked upon expanding the global reach of its supporters. AQAP recently translated al-Qaeda’s online journal Inspire into Russian in an effort to attract …
Those who advocate strict non-interventionism usually intend it to mean that America should remain militarily uninvolved abroad except when there is a clear and imminent threat to U.S. territory. But this isolationist doctrine of non-interventionism is not in keeping with the founding principles of America’s early foreign policy. The Founding Fathers, whose foreign policy some non-interventionists claim to champion, were no strangers to difficult foreign policy decisions. When faced with the choice to allow attacks on American ships of commerce by Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean Sea or to punish …
The Obama White House has a warped messaging strategy. In this week’s Time Magazine, Obama’s senior advisor and former campaign manager David Plouffe celebrates the president as a sort-of entertainer-in-chief, rather than a serious leader. Plouffe tells Time that when President Obama recently spoke about immigration at the Texas border and said off-script of those who want greater border security: “Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat,” this was a messaging victory. According to Plouffe, the messaging “victory” is apparently measured by the amount of …
This week is U.S. Small Business Week, and it’s important to take a moment to recognize those companies that have done so much for the country. It’s especially important because so many of these businesses are being threatened by regulatory burdens imposed by Obamacare and a slew of other economic and environmental regulations. America’s 27.2 million small businesses employ nearly 60 million people. Despite their important contribution to the country’s economy, these companies face some of the steepest regulatory costs around. According to one study commissioned by the U.S. Small …
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits President Barack Obama at the White House today for three hours of meetings, he will likely ask the President a very important question: Do you stand by the long-standing U.S. commitments to Israel’s future as a Jewish state? He’s right to ask the question. In a speech yesterday on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East following the “Arab Spring” uprisings, President Obama broached the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Notably, he stated that, as part of finding peace between Israel and Palestine, …
In his much-hyped speech on the Middle East and North Africa, President Obama made the case that “a moment of opportunity” in the region should not be lost. “Sometimes, in the course of history,” the President remarked, “the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has built up for years.” If the cause of freedom is sweeping around the world—and all Americans can hope that it is—then history tells us that more often than not it has been the quest …
President Obama today delivered a lengthy speech on U.S. policy in the Middle East that promised continued American support for democratic transitions in the countries influenced by the “Arab Spring.” He outlined an overly optimistic vision of what an Israeli–Palestinian peace settlement would look like. But he missed an opportunity to express strong U.S. support for democratic opposition movements brutally repressed by two dictatorships that stand as the chief barriers to realizing American goals in the Middle East: Iran and Syria. The President reviewed the “extraordinary change” that has recently …
We are joined by Education Policy Analyst Lindsey Burke and she will take your questions about what can be done about federal education policy. Ask a question in the form below Lunch with Heritage feat. Lindsey Burke
In one of the most important votes on Obama’s lower court judicial nominees, Democrats were unable to overcome the filibuster of Ninth Circuit Court nominee Goodwin Liu in a vote in the U.S. Senate this afternoon. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster under the Senate rules, and the final vote was only 52 in favor of cutting off debate, 43 opposed, one senator voting “present” (Sen. Orrin Hatch), and four not voting. Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska crossed party lines to oppose Liu, making it the first successful …
