Claudia Rosett

Iran Grabs a Seat at the UN’s High Table — By Hosting the Dinner

Pajamas Media: The Rosett Report Whatever the Farsi term might be for chutzpah, Iran’s despots put on a staggering display of such stuff this past week. Apparently it wasn’t enough for Tehran that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to New York to provide the opening burlesque on Monday of the United Nations nonproliferation review conference, followed by Ahmadinejad’s usual whirl of interviews and press conferencing in the heart of the Great Satan.

Revaluing Freedom

- Forbes OSLO -- Too often in recent times Norway has embarrassed itself as a sanctimonious dispenser of devalued Nobel Peace Prizes, having more to do lately with Norway's left-leaning politics than with peace. But last week Oslo got it right, hosting a gathering devoted to that vital underpinning of peace--namely, freedom.

Terrorist With A Five-Star Tab

- Forbes DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -Were it not for the recent, high-profile murder of a Hamas terrorist leader on the premises, the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel would be notable mainly for its glitz and comfort. As it is, in the many stories written about the death of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, found suffocated to death in his Al Bustan guest room in January, the hotel's five-star rating has been mentioned mostly in passing.

Kim Jong Il’s ‘Cashbox’

Forbes Despite all the pomp and nuclear summitry, North Korea keeps sliding down President Barack Obama's to-do list. Yet something must be done. The threat here is not solely North Korea's own arsenal, or its role, despite U.S. and United Nations sanctions, as a 24/7 convenience store for rogue regimes interested in weapons of mass destruction plus delivery systems. The further problem is that North Korea provides perverse inspiration for other despotisms.

Preemptive Disarmament

- Forbes Where's realpolitik when you need it? Last September, when President Barack Obama chaired a United Nations Security Council summit themed around his dreams of a planet without nuclear weapons, French President Nicolas Sarkozy interrupted the posturing to remind the assembled worthies that "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one," and the real world, with North Korea and Iran, includes, "two major nuclear crises."

Saying Goodbye To America’s Post 9/11 TV Hero

- Forbes After eight seasons, the Fox series 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer -- America's one-man do-or-die counterterrorism force--is due to go off the air when the current season wraps up on May 24.

Turkey Tilts Toward Iran

- Forbes ANKARA -- Drinking tea with the President of Turkey has charms enough so that I wish there were no need to report the disturbing talk that went with it--of Iranian rulers and nuclear bombs.

Another Casualty of Climategate?

Could it be yet another knock-on effect of the crumbling of the United Nations ‘climate consensus” facade? One of Kofi Annan’s old-boy clubs appears to be in trouble.

A Modest Proposal For Israel

- Forbes Here's the latest in our occasional series of how-to memos on global diplomacy. Memo: To Israel From: Big Brother Consulting Service, Washington, D.C. Executive Summary:

Evil As Usual

- Forbes Movies and television teach us that evil comes draped in drama, set to a sinister sound track, often with lots of visible gore. But all too often, especially in matters of tyranny, evil appears in banal ways that blend into the accepted landscape.

Scion Of Hamas

- Forbes Meet Mosab Hassan Yousef, a genuine Palestinian freedom fighter. He was raised to become a leader of the terrorist group Hamas--strict Muslims dedicated to the destruction of Israel. But the horrors he saw them inflicting on their own people led him to become an informant within Hamas for the Israeli security service Shin Bet. Risking death had he been found out, he worked for years to save innocent lives, as he puts it--both Israeli and Palestinian.

Video Killer Thriller In Dubai

- ForbesRarely has Big Brother been so generous with his video clips. Last week Dubai authorities released surveillance camera footage of 11 suspects wanted for the assassination of a top Hamas terrorist, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, found dead in his room on Jan. 20 in a Dubai luxury hotel. Spliced together and embellished by the Dubai police with helpful captions and red circles to highlight the suspects, it's an enthralling show. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is the lingua franca of the modern world. At speed, around the globe, this footage has fueled interest in the case and stoked speculation about whodunnit.

Pandering To The Islamic Conference

- Forbes Controversy is swirling around President Barack Obama's choice of a young American Muslim lawyer, Rashad Hussain, to serve as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Behind this fracas looms the even larger question of whether the U.S. should be sending the OIC any special envoy at all.

Don’t Let Iran On The Human Rights Council

- Forbes While Iran's regime bloodies its dissidents, the nuclear weapons-loving mullahs are seeking a treat for themselves at the United Nations: Iran is running for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Flirting With Disaster

- Forbes Does Barack Obama really want to be the president who let Iran get the nuclear bomb? Outside the White House bubble, signs keep multiplying that this could be the year. Iran continues to defy U.S. and United Nations sanctions, buy time with on-again off-again haggling over its growing hoard of enriched uranium, and hone its missile delivery systems--firing off yet another rocket test just this week.

Keep An Eye On The U.N.

Forbes If you don't like your tax bill now, watch out for the plans of the United Nations. The U.N. has been cooking up proposals to tax you every time you fly, drink, bank, use the Internet or earn a buck.

Givers And Misers

- Forbes The earthquake in Haiti has brought out the best and the worst of the so-called international community. It has especially highlighted the contrast between the generosity and capabilities of the free world and the miserly, self-serving ways of the oil-rich tyrannies of the Middle East.

Haiti: U.S. Sends Help, UN Wants Money

First, in making a comment on the United Nations and Haiti, let’s note that among the scores of thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of people killed in Haiti by the earthquake on Tuesday were dozens of UN staff, with some 150 still unaccounted for as of Thursday. The scene is one of devastating loss of life.

The True Meaning Of Martyrdom

- Forbes What cause would you be willing to die for? For many of us, that question may seem academic. But in the great wars of values and ideas, there are inflection points at which the course of many lives can turn on the actions of those willing to sacrifice their own. America is about to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, honoring a man who put himself on the line for freedom, looked over the mountaintop--and died for it.

Columbia Magazine: Review of “No Enchanted Palace” - on the UN

Yet, for all the author’s erudition and insights, this book spins off the rails...Mazower’s chief beef with the UN is its role in the establishment in 1948 of the nation of Israel. He details the process with indignation, glancing over the industrial-scale murder of 6 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, and dismissing the aspect of partition that offered not only the Jews but the Palestinians a state of their own — which the Palestinians refused. Focusing chiefly on Jewish thinkers of the day, Mazower draws parallels between the “Hitlerite” pursuit of ethnic purity in Europe and the Jewish quest for a secure homeland. This is delicately done. Mazower does not bluntly equate the two, but he scatters select historical crumbs to point his readers down exactly that trail.