Admittedly, Kerry has not always applied the lessons of Vietnam properly—witness his regrettable support for the Bush administration’s disastrous invasion of Iraq. But elsewhere, as in his efforts to ease the archaic U.S. blockade on Cuba, Kerry continues to promote engagement as the fundamental tool of foreign policy.
Running along the beachside route toward Kubagan, Yemen, there is a small flexible tube. It’s a garden hose running all the way from the next town, and it’s the only source of clean water the village has.
From drugs to drones, budgets to bases, and Syria to Sandy, FPIF continues to cover the human impacts of policy at home and abroad, always affording a special place to scholars and activists committed to changing it for the better. In that spirit, we’ve collected 16 of our biggest stories from 2012—those global vignettes that readers like you read, shared, and talked about the most.
A Lebanese Alawite family sits in their living room by a Christmas tree. The Alawite sect is a branch of Shi’a Islam found mostly in Syria. When asked about their Christmas tree, they replied “We obviously don’t believe in the same Christmas story, but its a fun holiday. Nice for the kids.”
This is the holiday season — a time for family gatherings, holiday cheer, and goodwill toward mankind. This is the season of peace — that perennial and elusive thing we talk about so much yet have so little. But who talks about Hiroshima in December?
The most important rule in the world of theater is to keep the attention of your audience. If they become distracted or bored, if they start to fidget in their seats, the illusion of the spectacle is at risk. Once word gets out that you can’t deliver as a playwright or a director, the audiences dwindle. And fewer people are interested in your next offering. North Korean leaders have always understood the importance of theater.
Susan Rice’s announcement that she would withdraw her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it marks yet another example of the Obama administration’s failure to defend its appointees from concerted and misleading Republican attacks. On the other, Rice’s willingness to state demonstrable falsehoods to defend actions by the United States and its allies that violate international norms would have made her a poor choice for secretary of state.
“It’s déjà vu all over again.” The classic quote from the great American philosopher Yogi Berra, originally in reference to the home run chase between baseball greats Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in 1961, could just as well describe the hand-wringing currently taking place from Beijing to Washington over North Korea’s planned missile launch in late 2012.
Given the thousands of people returning to Cairo’s Tahrir Square and growing discontent over the economy, security, and civil liberties, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi may have inadvertently provided his critics with a temporary unifying device: rallying to defend the rule of law.
Surely, I thought, the critically acclaimed Argo would be an intelligent film. Directed by noted progressive Ben Affleck, I had high hopes that the film would tackle complex subject matter in a responsible and nuanced way. But while well-intentioned, Argo failed to deliver, falling into the common Hollywood trap of making Muslims into a monolithic Green Menace.