When Israel-Palestine merits not a word from a president, you know the United States is turning inward.
Roger Cohen, New York Times, 28 January 2010, “Exit America“
The same Cohen op-ed indicates that only nine minutes were devoted to international affairs in President Obama’s first State of the Union message last month. And now we hear [...]

Europeans interested in civilian control of the military and in democratic oversight of the EU’s foreign affairs (to include defence) would do well to consider the opinion of Jan Dirk Blaauw, former Netherlands MP and former President of the WEU Assembly. The Assembly of the WEU (an institution that many casual observers had thought [...]

I certainly hope so, since I played a small part in helping the man get elected last year. But a recent trip to the US makes me pause. This appeared first in my other blog, Avuncular American.
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Les culottes à l’air, or airing the Unmentionables
Cheapskate that I am, I am milking the Financial Times [...]

Large sums promised to developing countries to help them tackle climate change cannot be accounted for, a BBC investigation has found. Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration - but it is now unclear whether the money was paid. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing [...]

Note: Other than the fact that (1) George Bush is no longer US President and (2) Jean-Claude Juncker is available, if asked… other than those two facts, my post in Avuncular American of 14 March 2008 still stands: “Europe’s First President: Charisma vs. Competence?” Oh yes, and this: the idea that David Miliband [...]

Brussels was the venue of a very important human rights conference this past week, but it took place in an academic setting, out of the spotlight but hopefully not entirely unnoticed.
ULB’s conference on 20 October, “Terrorism Lists, Executive Powers, and Human Rights,” organised by the European Centre for Constitutional & Human Rights” (ECCHR), aimed very [...]

It wouldn’t be autumn in Brussels without its slew of conferences to welcome the city’s “policy wonks” back from a long summer of frivolity. This week’s all-day conclave devoted to “The New European Parliament: What Priorities for Foreign Affairs, Security, and Defence?” covered a lot of ground, especially when the subtitle indicated that it [...]

24 hours after Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Middle East peace is “impossible” and, especially helpfully in case that message appeared overly pessimistic, that many countries “have learned to live with” a permanent state of war, the Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama.
The President’s personal honor [...]

When you fly into Prague on Czech Airlines, they start playing The Moldau, Bedrich Smetana’s bucolic ode to his country, from Má vlast (My Country), his set of 19th century symphonic poems. You can almost hear the river Vltava flowing.
Now, I’m no Czech nationalist, in fact I find it awkward to even pronounce the [...]

Spanish writer/director Gerardo Olivares’ film 14 Kilómetros tells us how far the Moroccan coastline is separated from Spain. Tantalizingly close, visible from your window whether you’re in Tangier on the African side or Tarifa on the European coast. But if you are one of the thousands of desperate African migrants who has [...]

The 8th annual Transatlantic Trends survey of European and American attitudes is out. I must first qualify “European,” which includes non-EU Turkey (which is not even in Europe, according to many), but does not include a number of EU countries. No Scandinavians, no Baltics? Likewise, “American” is just that: the US’s North [...]

Michael Jackson’s televised funeral farewell turned out to be rather dignified, surprising those who expected the worst from a crowd of fanatical fans. But that doesn’t mean I approve of the time the world spent on this distraction.
So far, the G8 summit in L’Aquila has produced photo ops galore for host Silvio Berlusconi, and [...]

As soon as you start using the term pirate, unfortunately cute or nostalgic images of Johnny Depp and Long John Silver come to mind - “Avast, me hearties!” (”avast” means to stop or cease) and other lusty lingo. All that is best relegated to the world of children’s stories (image, Playwood Toys). Today’s [...]

NDLR: Voici mes remarques lors d’une conférence à Bruxelles organisée par GRIP, pour presenter leur nouveau livre, “Qui Arme Israel Et Le Hamas?”
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La politique américaine au Moyen-Orient et Obama : quels changements possibles ?
Je me présente aujourd’hui comme ancien diplomate américain au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord. Durant la campagne présidentielle américaine, j’agissais [...]

NDLR: Voici le texte de mes remarques hier soir lors de la présentation du nouveau livre du Professeur Irnerio Seminatore, Directeur de l’Institut Européen des Relations Internationales (IERI) et de l’Academia Diplomatica Europaea (ADE), deux institutions Bruxelloises. Son livre, publié chez l’Harmattan, s’intitule “l’Europe entre utopie et realpolitik.” La conférence a eu lieu [...]