Claudia Rosett

Axis Of Opportunism

- Forbes The bad old Axis of Evil is back in the news. That's not because President Barack Obama has resurrected the label, but because he's now planning to hold direct talks with its two surviving charter members, Iran and North Korea.

It Takes A Nuclear Village

-Forbes WASHINGTON -- New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau left his home turf and came to the nation's capital on Tuesday to sound the alarm about a "blossoming relationship" between Iran and Venezuela. Comparing the situation to the lead up to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Morgenthau warned of growing threats--involving missiles, nuclear ventures and terrorist training--that Iran and Venezuela are now cultivating, together, "in our backyard."

UNICEF’s Proliferation-Prone Banker

- Forbes With four sets of sanctions over the past three years, the United Nations is supposed to be leading the charge to stop Iran's drive toward the nuclear bomb. The most recent U.N. move, Security Council Resolution 1803, passed in March 2008, calls upon all U.N. member states "to exercise vigilance over the activities of financial institutions in their territories with all banks domiciled in Iran." This resolution highlights two Iranian state-owned banks as nuclear proliferators: Bank Saderat and Bank Melli.

The Age Of The Celebrity Tyrant

- Forbes Move over, Hollywood, Bollywood and all the rest of you glitterati. The world has entered the age of the Celebrity Tyrant. Hardly a week goes by without the exploits of some despot or other snatching the headlines--whether it's North Korea's Kim Jong Il hosting Bill Clinton for dinner and a detainee pickup; Muammar al-Qaddafi celebrating the parole of one of his Lockerbie-bombing terrorist agents; or Burma's Than Shwe milking the hostage-politics racket for a house call from Senator Jim Webb.

The U.N. Kicks Off Another Season Of Bedlam

Forbes Next month brings the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Even more than usual, it is shaping up as such a carnival of thugs that not only does Libya's Muammar Gaddafi look likely to make an unprecedented appearance, but jokes are circulating that he wants to bring his own tent.

The ‘Disappointing’ Lingo Of Modern Diplomacy

- Forbes We've entered an age of growing threats and great perils. Rogue states seek nuclear weapons, terrorists enlist modern technology in service of mass murder and tyrannical regimes spin networks and alliances that cross oceans and span continents, from Iran to Venezuela, from North Korea to Burma, from China to Sudan.

Pyongyang Playbook

Forbes Two scenes sum up Bill Clinton's trip to Pyongyang to bring home jailed American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. One is now filling our TV screens with feel-good footage. The other may seem mere backdrop, but it is fuel to a global gathering storm.

Your Tired, Your Poor, Guests Of Saddam

Forbes America is the world's leading haven for refugees. But how generously should that extend to people whose interests were entwined for years with America's enemies?

Stop The Apologizing

Forbes In a year that has not lacked for absurd moments, one of the most bizarre just passed almost unnoticed. That would be the spectacle of the U.S. secretary of state apologizing to India for the climate of the planet.

Dear Leader, Dead Leader?

- Forbes Will North Korea's ailing Dear Leader soon be the Dead Leader? Speculation has been swirling around recent North Korean television footage of a haggard Kim Jong-il, his face gaunt, his once-thick hair receding. Believed to have suffered a stroke last August, Kim, now in his late sixties, has recently been described in South Korean media reports as stricken with pancreatic cancer.

The Bear Scare

- Forbes Watching President Obama hit the "reset" button in Moscow this week, I was reminded of one of my own New Age encounters in Russia, about 14 years ago. Then, working as bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal in Moscow, I was on the receiving end of a shipment of new computers for the office. After much wrangling, delay and expense, they finally arrived. But the first one we unpacked would not boot up. The Russian customs service, in its own version of "reset," had stripped out the hard drive before turning over to us the hollow shell.

Where’s the UN on Iran?

- Forbes People are being killed in Iran. Where is the U.N.? What institution could be better positioned to relieve President Obama of his worries about America standing up unilaterally for freedom in Iran? The U.N. is the self-styled overlord of the international community, committed in its charter to promote peace, freedom and "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights."

The Green Rebellion

- ForbesWith great courage, Iranians have been rising up against the tyranny of their 30-year-old Islamic Republic. This is a weak moment for Iran's terror-based regime, and democracies such as the U.S. should seize the chance to shake it further--and support the protesters in the process--by turning up the heat.

Living On Obama Beach

- Forbes "Obama Beach." That phrase was a slip of the tongue by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking last Saturday in Normandy, alongside President Barack Obama and other leaders gathered in honor of the 65th anniversary of World War II's D-Day landing on the coast of France. Brown was referring to Omaha Beach, as he then made clear.

What Obama’s Mideast Trip Says About The U.S.

- Forbes Americans woke up this week to news that President Obama is now describing the U.S. as--if you take into account the number of Muslim Americans--"one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

What I Saw at Tiananmen

- Wall Street Journal It's now 20 years since I ran through a cross-fire of tracer bullets, heading into Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4 to witness the end of the uprising in which millions of Chinese, in the spring of 1989, peacefully seized control of their own capital and demanded democracy.

Remembering Tiananmen Square

- Forbes Next week brings the 20th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square uprising--or rather, of its suppression, on June 4, when China's government sent in troops to crush the democracy movement then blooming out of Beijing.

A Tale Of Two Libyans

- Forbes Note: The Libyan democratic dissident described below, Fathi Eljahmi, died in Jordan today -- just hours after this column came out last night. Fathi Eljahmi gave his life for the cause of freedom. He spent most of the past seven years stifled, abused, isolated and deprived of vital medical care inside Gaddafi's prison system in Libya. Part of that time, he was confined in a Libyan psychiatric hospital. According to his brother, Mohamed Eljahmi, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in America, Fathi was in a coma when Libyan authorities finally sent him to Jordan for medical treatment earlier this month; and even in Jordan, comatose in the days before his death, he was monitored by Libyan security.

A World Sliding Into Danger

- Forbes Time was when the sun never set on the British Empire. These days, it seems the sun never sets on a crisis. This week alone you can take your pick among the mysteries of the spreading swine flu, the drumbeat of Iranian nuclear pursuits, the conundrums of American self-flagellation over Guantanamo Bay, the wild uncertainties of the modern world's financial system or the Taliban onslaught in nuclear-armed Pakistan. You can go online and make a career out of delving into each in turn--and while you are doing that, another crisis will turn up.

U.S. Seeks To Join A Despots’ Club

- ForbesSaudi Arabia, Cuba, China, Russia, Cameroon, Djibouti. What do these countries all have in common? Yes, they are all systematic violators of human rights. Some of them, such as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, rank among the world's worst.