Category Archives: Diplomacy

Hillary Wouldn’t Have Needed Two Phones

Arguing that she used private email for all of her State Department correspondence out of a desire for “convenience,” Hillary Clinton said that she would have needed two phones if she’d used a State Department account.

But that isn’t true.  When I worked on the 2008 presidential campaign, I had one BlackBerry.  It had the official campaign email on it, as well as a couple of email accounts I used for personal correspondence with family and friends.

Her claim that she didn’t want to carry two “devices” is BS.

U. S. Spins Its Wheels, While Iran Spins Its Centrifuges

The deadline for nuclear talks with Iran was supposed to be tomorrow, July 20.  In exchange for holding off on further sanctions, President Obama swore up and down to Congress that this was a firm deadline.

Now the deadline has been extended till November 24, which means Iran blithely continues its path to a nuclear weapon.  What does Iran need most?  Time.  What did they just get?  Time.

Look, if they had a delay of a week or two, that would be one thing.  It would show they were close to a deal.  (Whether it would be a smart deal for us is a different issue, but not one we face today.)  But a four–month extension shows that we have nothing, that we’re just spinning our wheels, while they spin their centrifuges.

November 24 gets Obama past the mid-terms and to Thanksgiving when no one will be paying attention when they announce further failure and, God forbid, another absurd extension.

Quote of the Day

“The Obama administration’s extraordinary commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is also difficult to justify.  Even before the recent breakdown in talks, the dispute didn’t appear ripe for resolution.  And it must be acknowledged that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute no longer occupies center stage in the Middle East.  The emergence of a separate Palestinian state wouldn’t affect the troubling events in Syria, Egypt or Iraq.”

Richard Haass, WSJ