Dickey: Can Obama Outwit Hamas, Iran? | Newsweek Voices - Christopher Dickey

Wrongs Council
9/22/2009 12:00:00 AM
Despite a high-profile effort to reform the world's top human-rights panel, the new U.N. Human Rights Council continues to face the same criticisms that plagued its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. Experts say bloc voting, loose membership standards, and bias against Israel are keeping the two-year-old council from living up to expectations as a responsible watchdog over global human-rights norms. It is earning a failing grade from a broad range of groups, including human-rights advocates, international-law experts, and democracy activists. Experts say the council's condemnation of the human-rights situations in Darfur, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are steps in the right direction, and there is also a broad expectation that a new U.S. administration in Washington could change the contentious relationship between the council and the United States, which is not a member. But in a year during which the world body marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many see the new rights council as a stain on the U.N.'s reputation.
Shopping for a New Policy on Iran
Mark Hosenball 9/12/2009 12:00:00 AM
The Obama administration has accepted a long-awaited Iranian offer to negotiate, but responded skeptically to it. It was "not really responsive to our greatest concern," Iran's nuclear program, says a State Department spokesman. Tehran proposed talks on a range of issues last week but indicated it wouldn't discuss shutting down its uranium-enrichment program. Israel has signaled an end-of-year deadline for military action, but U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said last week that President Obama would be "taking stock" with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (plus Germany) later this month.
Medal Nettle
8/6/2009 12:00:00 AM
Last week the White House announced that Mary Robinson would be one of the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. Robinson was the first female president of Ireland and was later the United Nations's High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR)—the first one ever to visit Tibet, among other notable achievements in that post. She has also held leadership roles at several other noble international organizations. Obviously, she has been an indomitable defender of freedom across the globe. Yet if there's one person who shouldn't be getting a freedom medal, it's Mary Robinson.
Invisible Man
Kevin Peraino 7/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The halls of Jerusalem's foreign ministry are eerily quiet this week, despite one of the highest-profile diplomatic confabs in recent years. On Sunday, President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, showed up in the region for an intense round of talks on settlements. The next day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into town for a session on Iran. National-security adviser Jim Jones is expected in the Holy Land on Wednesday. The one conspicuous absence amid all the high-level diplomacy: Israel's controversial chief diplomat himself, Avigdor Lieberman.
Stand In
7/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
On Sunday, George Mitchell, President Obama's Middle East envoy, arrived in Israel to confer with its leaders. Also visiting this week are Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national-security adviser James Jones, and Gulf States envoy Dennis Ross. It's a full-court press on the Israelis, and the American wish list is long. They want Israel to stop expanding settlements; to stop building Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem; and for hawks in the government to chill out while the U.S. is negotiating with Iran. And yet, odds are, they'll come back to Washington empty-handed, for reasons having to do as much with atmospherics as policy: Team Obama just doesn't have Israel's full trust.
A Friend in Need
Jacob Weisberg 6/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
Since the first stirrings of the Arab-Israeli peace process after the Yom Kippur war in 1973, America's relations with Israel have been characterized by a paradox: those presidents regarded as the least friendly to the Jewish state have done it the most good. Its strong allies have proved much less helpful.