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The 2008 presidential primaries are being avidly followed, both at home and abroad. With all the rules for picking a party nominee, including the much-discussed Democratic superdelegates, some U.S. voters have begun questioning the extent to which the process is democratic.
Bill Buckley, who died yesterday, will, of course, be remembered as the man who was most singly responsible for the modern conservative movement.
After more than 50 years in power, Fidel Castro, the longest-serving leader in the world, finally announced last week that he would step down. Mr. Castro's decision was hardly a surprise, as he'd officially given caretaker power to his brother two years ago, when Mr. Castro first revealed his serious intestinal illness.
About a year ago Fidel Castro started blogging. Every week or so he posted his “Reflections of the Commander in Chief”. While not strictly a blog, in his internet musings “El Comandante” does what bloggers do: he comments on the news, chastises enemies (Bush, Aznar), extols friends (Hugo!) or rambles on subjects he cares about (sport and politics).
When the U.S. launched a missile to destroy a dead satellite that would have otherwise re-entered the atmosphere and possibly threatened populated areas with a toxic load of hydrazine fuel, it resurrected fears about the so-called weaponization of space. Carnegie Associate Ashley J. Tellis comments in the Wall Street Journal on the ongoing “space weapon” debate and praises the Bush administration for rejecting a joint Russian-Chinese arms treaty aimed at banning such weapons.
The long-awaited "resignation" of Fidel Castro may give both Cubans and Americans a chance to escape the trap they've been in for more than four decades. Fidel's brother Raúl will now officially become Cuba's maximum leader, a role he has held unofficially throughout Castro's long debility. That the Cuban leadership has finally reached the point where it must announce a changing of the dictatorial guard indicates this is a good time for the United States to suggest a different and more hopeful course. Instead of passing the torch to a new generation of dictators, Cuba's leaders could commit themselves to hold free and fair elections by the end of this year. And they could begin by unconditionally releasing all the political prisoners held in their jails.
Monday's elections in Pakistan were -- to use a timeworn cliché -- a political earthquake. Although the poll numbers were clear, very few Pakistan watchers expected that President Pervez Musharraf would allow the opposition to win in such a decisive fashion. In the end, South Asia expert Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told me, "There was a depth of resentment that not even the government's manifold efforts at shaping the outcome could prevent."
The clamor over illegal immigration can be expected to grow over this year and to play a large role in this fall's election debate, as it already has in the congressional by-elections that have taken place since November 2006. Which party will benefit is unclear. What is certain is that the United States, which has grown and prospered as a nation of immigrants, will suffer from this acrimony.
Bernard Gwertzman from the Council on Foreign Relations interviews Carnegie Endowment's senior associate, Ashley J. Tellis.
In early 2003, Carnegie President Jessica Tuchman Mathews and her colleagues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were among the few foreign policy experts in Washington trying to stem the rising tide in favor of invading Iraq. The Washington Examiner profiled Mathews about Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, and her work at the Endowment over the past ten years. Since her arrival, the Endowment has transformed itself from a think tank on international issues to the first truly multinational — ultimately global — think tank.
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