FPI In the News

By ending America's military presence in Iraq, President Obama has irresponsibly endangered that country's progress in internal security, sectarian reconciliation, and democratic reform—progress that U.S. troops had fought hard to facilitate.

As Barack Obama seeks reelection, he will likely tout the country's counterterrorism successes under his watch and, in a sop to his base, his ending of the war in Iraq and his efforts to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Although voters in 2012 will be focused primarily on the state of the economy, they should consider who is best suited to defend the country and advance America's interests as commander chief when choosing whether to reelect Obama or bring in a new president.

Is the United States truly declining?  Or are Americans, mistakenly fearful of decline, actually committing a “pre-emptive superpower suicide”?  FPI Director Robert Kagan—a former U.S. State Department official and the best-selling author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2008), Dangerous Nation (2006), and Of Paradise and Power (2003)—unflinchingly answers these and other provocative questions in his new book, The World America Made, available on February 12, 2012.

It has been the policy of U.S. presidents over the last three decades to state that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. Yet as Iran moves closer to achieving that goal, political leaders, including key Obama administration officials such as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, have begun to waver.

Obama administration bigwigs are falling all over themselves to denounce, condemn, lament, and apologize for the unfortunate behavior of a few Marines in Afghanistan last year. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta condemned the action as not just deplorable but “utterly deplorable.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed not just dismay but “total dismay.”

“China is the largest hypocrisy in the world,” Richard Gere told an interviewer from Indian television station NDTV yesterday, while attending a major Buddhist teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya. In the lengthy interview, the transcript of which can be read here, Gere argues that China’s policies of repression in Tibet and in China will not succeed, notes the importance of the democratic Tibetan government-in-exile for the future, and identifies”money” or “truth” as the world’s choice in dealing China.

From FPI Policy Director Robert Zarate and Policy Analyst Evan Moore

Is the United States now on a path to becoming a much diminished global power?  Unless the President and Congress work together to quickly change the Pentagon’s new trajectory, the answer is "Yes."

Europe’s on-going debt crisis will have a dramatic impact on NATO’s future defense operations.  As we speak, governments across the Continent are instituting austerity measures to avert credit downgrades and the collapse of the Euro. After years of shrinking defense budgets, more cuts are expected, further restricting the continent’s ability to defend U.S. and European interests abroad. 

Dear Secretary Clinton,

We write to express our grave concern about the assault last week by the Egyptian authorities on Egyptian and international civil society groups. These latest actions undermine the already unsteady progress toward democracy in Egypt and raise serious doubts about whether the current military authorities will permit a successful transition from Army rule.

In his 2009 Inaugural Address, President Obama laid down a marker to those who would threaten the United States:

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.  And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken -- you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Another country has calculated that Christmas time is a good time to launch a crackdown on human rights. Following China’s harsh sentencing of two writers on subversion charges, Egyptian security forces today rolled up to several prominent democracy and human rights NGOs in Cairo and shut them down, confiscated materials, and detained employees onsite for questioning.