The Mumbai terrorists attacked previously untargeted groups in India, including wealthy Indians and foreigners, in a likely attempt to discredit India as a safe place to conduct business and articulate a wide range of grievances with the government.
The Mumbai terrorists appear to have targeted wealthy Indians and foreigners in a series of coordinated attacks that have left over 100 dead and hundreds injured.
The presidential transition has raised a variety of questions regarding the future of U.S. foreign policy. In an Bloggingheads debate with Robert Wright of the New America Foundation, Robert Kagan expressed his views and reaffirmed his belief that the power of nations—rather than international legal principles—must still play the defining role in shaping international relations.
With oil prices tumbling, some experts believe that this is the perfect time for China to reform its oil pricing mechanism, because a higher tax would currently inflict relatively little hardship on consumers. The government should use this rare opportunity to create a pricing system that better reflects the full economic and environmental costs of fuel production and consumption.
There are a number of options and decisions that the Obama administration will be confronted by in closing Guantanamo Bay. Among them are what should be done with remaining detainees; how should those who have been charged with crimes be treated; how viable is rehabilitation?
If President-elect Obama closes Guantanamo, as he pledged to on the campaign trail, the administration will have to figure out what to do with the remaining detainees. One option is a rehabilitation program modeled on a successful Saudi initiative that includes intensive counseling sessions, help finding employment, and, crucially, religious dialogue with imams.
One of the most urgent and troublesome foreign policy challenges for the incoming Obama administration is Iran. Iran policy is a Rubik's Cube of components, including Tehran's nuclear activities, its hostility to Israel, its role in Iraq and Afghanistan, its support for Hamas and Hezbollah and the nature of the Islamic republic itself.
Any successful approach toward Iran must take into account that real political power resides with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran. On C-SPAN’s Book TV, Karim Sadjadpour discussed his monograph Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader, and policy implications for the United States.
The Sino-American relationship is one of the issues that looms largest as President-elect Obama prepares to assume office in less than two weeks. To asses the developments in that relationship over the last eight years, CCTV sat down with Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Douglas Paal, Vice President for Studies.
In addition to being a turning point for American society, Barack Obama’s election as president also brings the country great opportunity on the global stage. Joining three other historians to discuss the recent election, Robert Kagan highlights Obama’s popularity abroad and expresses hope that the president-elect can use this to his advantage in the foreign policy realm.