News stories by Daniel Luban, page 4

The U.S. should stop focusing on universalising Western democracy and instead work on constructing an international order that grants full legitimacy to responsible non-democratic states, argues an influential new paper that has become widely discussed in Washington foreign policy circles.

Although the successful campaign to keep Amb. Charles 'Chas' Freeman out of a top intelligence post marked a surface victory for the pro-Israel hardliners who opposed him, the long-term political implications of the Freeman affair appear far more ambiguous.

Amb. Chas Freeman withdrew from consideration for a top intelligence post in the Obama administration on Tuesday, following a vitriolic battle that pitted Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel hardliners opposed to his appointment against liberals and members of the intelligence and diplomatic communities who had come to his defence.

The appointment of a top-ranking retired diplomat and vocal critic of Israel to a key intelligence post has triggered an intense backlash from hawkish Israel supporters in Congress and the media who are pressing the administration of President Barack Obama to reconsider.

The fiercely anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been traveling through the U.S. this week on a highly-publicised trip to meet with politicians, promote his controversial film ‘Fitna’, and raise money for his legal defence back home.

A prominent international human rights organisation has called for an arms embargo against both Israel and Hamas after finding evidence that both sides used foreign-supplied arms to commit war crimes during the recent conflict in Gaza.

The relationship between the U.S. and Russia, which reached a nadir this past August during the war in Georgia, appears to have experienced a slight thaw during the first month of the Barack Obama administration.

Was the foreign policy of George W. Bush an aberration in U.S. history, a turn away from the traditional guiding principles of U.S. foreign policy towards messianic ambitions of permanent supremacy and universal democracy?

Central Asia is shaping up to be an early test of Barack Obama's foreign policy, as the increased demands of the war in Afghanistan force his administration to decide how far to accommodate or to pressure the region's autocratic governments.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced a preliminary investigation Tuesday into whether Israel committed war crimes during the recent Gaza war, following the Palestinian National Authority's (PNA) move to recognise the ICC's authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.