Context Included: Obama on Iran | Newsweek Politics: Conventions

‘Elections Don’t Make Democracy’
Kurt Soller 6/16/2009 12:00:00 AM
As the chaos in Iran continues, it's easy to wonder how difficult it is to pull off a fair democratic election, one that doesn't end in rioting and violence. Even America has had its share of (somewhat civil) conflict—Florida, anyone? So we turned to an expert to find out just how hard it is to run a fair election. After spending years in South Africa, and leading election-observation missions in the Congo and Ghana, John Stremlau knows how to ensure—and fairly observe—a democratic election, even in a country that might be conducting its first one. Now, as the vice president for peace programs at the Carter Center, he's working to ensure that independent election observation becomes the standard in all countries. He spoke to NEWSWEEK's Kurt Soller about the human-rights revolution, the ways to make an election run smoothly, and what happens when they don't go as planned. Excerpts:
Mohamed ElBaradei: ‘They are not Fanatics’
Christopher Dickey 5/23/2009 12:00:00 AM
As head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei has spent the past 11 years trying to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. The Nobel Peace Prize winner recently spoke to NEWSWEEK'S Christopher Dickey about his intense, often frustrating dialogue with the Iranians—and with the Americans. Excerpts:
The Deadline Dilemma
Dan Ephron 5/18/2009 12:00:00 AM
U.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in their first meeting since Israel's election in March, told reporters in Washington they agreed on most issues, including the need to advance peace efforts with the Palestinians and, notably, the need to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. "We don't see closely on this, we see exactly eye to eye on this," Netanyahu said in a joint news conference with Obama at the White House.
Train Wreck Ahead?
Michael Hirsh 5/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
For Israeli leaders, a public break with the United States is the third rail of politics. The possibility that Israelis might lose the support of the one nation that can guarantee their security awakens an existential dread that no politician can long survive. It is this factor, as much as any, that has restrained the Israelis from taking military action against Iran despite Tehran's efforts to build a nuclear-weapons capability. But now the possibility of such a break seems higher than it has in two decades. So it's no surprise that, as he prepares for his first meeting as prime minister with President Obama on May 18, Benjamin Netanyahu has been "fine-tuning" his hard-line positions on peace and Iran, as a senior Israeli official described it. "As we speak, there are meetings going on to make sure we have a success" at the summit, the official said.
Why Washington Worries
Fareed Zakaria 3/14/2009 12:00:00 AM
As George W. Bush's term came to a close, he had few defenders left in the world of foreign policy. Mainstream commentators almost unanimously agreed the Bush years had been marked by arrogance and incompetence. "Mr. Bush's characteristic failing was to apply a black-and-white mindset to too many gray areas of national security and foreign affairs," editorialized The Washington Post. Even Richard Perle, the neoconservative guru, acknowledged
OPINION
Our Nuclear Nightmare
Henry Kissinger 2/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Immanuel Kant defined the ultimate choice before mankind: if world history was to culminate in universal peace, would it be through moral insight, or through catastrophe of a magnitude that allowed no other outcome? We are approaching a point where that choice may be imposed on us. The basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern weapons into some moral or political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued. Any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign-policy objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application have never succeeded, from the doctrine of a geographically limited nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s to the "mutual assured destruction" theory of general nuclear war in the 1970s.