by Sida Chen In June of 2013, Iran will elect a successor to its two-term president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It will be the first presidential election to take place since the Green Revolution of 2009, the scene of mass protests in response to the direct manipulation of Iranian electoral outcomes. As they gained momentum, the protesters were brutally suppressed by Iran’s security forces. Establishment forces in Iran, represented by the then-close...
...rs, and seize shipments and destroy illegal cultivation. Almost four years of fighting, 45,000 troops, and countless innocent victims later, Calderón has yet to succeed in meeting his primary goal of increasing overall public security. With over 2,000 recorded deaths, 2010 is quickly on its way to surpassing the previous high of 5,580 set in 2009. With few results, ordinary citizens are beginning to turn against the government’s efforts. In a Mar...
In February, the United States Navy and Yemeni security forces seized a shipment of allegedly Iranian-made shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles heading to Houthi insurgents in Yemen. Far from a one-time incident, it is symptomatic of a larger and more disturbing trend in the region. Through the Quds force—a mix of an intelligence agency and special forces— Iran has begun providing significant support to various groups across the Middle East. Th...
...s the largest generation of Americans ages, they will, on the whole, be every bit as profligate and disruptive as they have been throughout their lives—they will cause the cost of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security to skyrocket, and they will drive the continued growth of health care costs for as far as the eye can see. One other important demographic change accompanying the Boomers’ retirement is that the birthrate in the Uni...
...r, uranium, and many other rare metals underneath a pristine ice cap still virgin of commercial exploitation. Securing a territory with such a rich underground, in whole or in part, would bless any country with durable energy security and, thereby, increased political independence in the international arena. Hence, many governments around the globe have placed the South Pole among their top foreign policy priorities. This is nothing new. Even in...
...illings a state-organized genocide. The Turkish government denies these accusations, claiming that the Armenians were killed as they revolted against the Ottoman government or died while being deported away from warzones as a security measure. For decades, these divergent interpretations of the events of 1915 have poisoned Armenian and Turkish relations. Last October, it seemed that this hostility might finally end. Under American, Russian and Sw...
...Lindsay Graham. In 2010, they introduced a legislative blueprint requiring the use of biometric identification to ensure that only documented citizens are hired for jobs. They also brought forward a proposal to improve border security to prevent the unlawful crossing of the American-Mexican border while simultaneously constructing a means to admit temporary workers into the United States and give those already in the country an opportunity to bec...
...e party of Roosevelt is decidedly overmatched. Screw the economy; it’s the foreign policy, stupid. This is not to say the Democrats should give up on being fiscally responsible and on forging a vision of equality and economic security—it’s just that the biggest issue right now in American political culture is what to do about the people who want to blow us up. A national poll conducted by CBS News/The New York Times two weeks after the election a...
...wal from Lebanon looming, Hariri’s passing could not have come at a worse time. His death threatened the fragile peace between both nations and, more importantly, the region’s tenuous hold on law and order. The United Nations Security Council assumed responsibility for the investigation into the assassination in the hope of preserving the diplomatic gains achieved thus far and preventing the development of an even more hostile atmosphere. UNSC Re...
A little problem with language in the past In 2006, President Bush delivered a speech unveiling the National Security Language Initiative. Delivering the speech to a crowd that included then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, President Bush began in a lighthearted manner. “I’ve had a little problem with the language in the past,” he joked, “so—i...
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