Claudia Rosett

Undoing Obama's Latest Legacy as UN Abstainer-in-Chief

To President Obama's legacy of foreign policy debacles, we can now add his landmark betrayal of Israel, carried out Dec. 23rd at the United Nations. By declining to wield the U.S. veto at the Security Council, by choosing instead to abstain -- by Vanishing-from-Behind -- Obama allowed the passage, by a vote of 14 in favor, 1 abstaining, of Resolution 2334. In the guise of condemning Israeli settlements, this resolution is configured to delegitimize and imperil Israel itself, America's longtime ally and the only democracy in the Middle East.

The Audacity of Silence On Possible Iran-North Korea Nuclear Ties

It’s now more than eight weeks since Senator Ted Cruz sent a letter to three senior officials of the Obama administration, detailing his concerns that North Korea and Iran might be working together on developing nuclear missiles.

Obama, Russia, The Election and A Visitor From Mars

So, as chance would have it we are currently hosting a newly arrived visitor from Mars, who has been avidly following the headlines. Having studied our world for some time, he is intrigued by the news, as reported first by the Washington Post on Friday: "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House."

Escape From the Life of Julia

There were plenty of flaws in the victory speech with which President-elect Donald Trump just kicked off his "Thank You Tour" of swing states. I hope he'll stick with his free-market plans to cut taxes and scrap regulations and jettison his state-planning proposal to punish companies for leaving the country (prosperity will come of free markets, not of presidentially directed industrial policy). And Shakespeare he's not; nor, for that matter, is he a Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan.

When the Trump Team Comes Looking for the Secrets of Obama's Iran File

Thursday's cordial meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama was a reassuring ritual of democracy. But Obama was far from convincing when he told Trump "we are now going to do everything we can to help you succeed." There are some highly disparate ideas here about what constitutes success, both foreign and domestic. There are also big areas in which one might reasonably wonder if Obama and his team are in a quandary over the prospect of a Trump administration inheriting the internal records of the most transparent administration ever.

For Next UN Secretary-General, A Managerially Incompetent Socialist

In the race for the next United Nations secretary-general, the Security Council has narrowed the field of candidates from a remaining 10 to precisely one: and the winner is, former Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Guterres. It could have been worse -- but not by much. Guterres brings to the job a record that suggests he is a perfect fit to head a UN that is prone to overreach, mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse and government meddling in every aspect of life -- provided we all want even more of the same.

Could Iran Use Its $1.7 Billion Cash Jackpot To Buy North Korean Nukes?

Even beyond the danger that Iran could use its $1.7 billion in air-freighted cash to fund terrorists, North Korea’s fifth nuclear test reminds us that Iran could also use its U.S.-begotten trove of hard currency to buy nuclear weapons technology — or even the warheads themselves — from cash-hungry North Korea.

China's Insult and Obama's Climate Kowtow

President Obama took office in 2009 promising that his brand of engagement would yield global respect for the United States. We've since had more than seven years of leading from behind, standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the "international community," snubbing of allies, appeasing of enemies and cutting America down to size. As Obama makes what will likely be his final official visit to China, how's it going?

The Obama Narrative Goes to Midway

Before we get to this latest frolic in the Obama Narrative, let's take a moment to remember the Battle of Midway, fought from June 4-7, 1942. It was a huge World War II naval victory over Japan that tipped the advantage decisively toward America in the Pacific.

Riddle of $1.3 Billion for Iran Might Relate to 13 Outlays Of Exactly $99,999,999.99

Congressional investigators trying to uncover the trail of $1.3 billion in payments to Iran might want to focus on 13 large, identical sums that Treasury paid to the State Department under the generic heading of settling “Foreign Claims.”

Bono and Love in a Time of Terror

There's much to be said for love, but watch out when it's a moralizing rock star doing the talking -- and the subject is not romance, but matters of life and death in a time of accelerating jihadi slaughter.

The Power Broker of Kabul

Years before Zalmay Khalilzad served as America’s emissary to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, he had become adept at straddling countries and cultures. Born in 1951 to a provincial official in Afghanistan, he made his first trip to America as a high-school exchange student in 1966 and when he arrived in his New York hotel was briefly stymied by the Western shower faucets. He learned fast, became an American citizen in 1984 and by early 2001 had a job on the National Security Council as the top staffer for the Middle East. This made him the highest-ranking Muslim in the administration of President George W. Bush.

Lobbing Words at North Korea's ‘Unacceptable’ Nuclear Missile Program

Here we go again. In violation of a stack of United Nations sanctions resolutions, North Korea has just launched a rocket into space. Pyongyang is describing this latest blast-off as a satellite launch. But the requisite technology is also useful for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, which is almost certainly what's really going on. This launch comes just a month after North Korea's fourth nuclear test, which Pyongyang advertised as a hydrogen bomb -- meaning a weapon of even greater destructive power than the atomic bombs North Korea has been testing since 2006.

North Korea's Nuclear Advance -- With Or Without The Hydrogen Bomb

It's almost two years since North Korea's government threatened to carry out "a new form of nuclear test." Asked at a United Nations press conference what Pyongyang had in mind, a North Korean diplomat said at the time, "Wait and see."

The U.N.'s Parade of Dictators

Founded in 1945 to promote global peace, human dignity and freedom, the United Nations is celebrating its 70th anniversary — with a parade of dictators. The ceremonies will peak on Monday, at U.N. headquarters in New York, when the General Assembly opens its annual debate with a lineup starring the presidents of such notorious tyrannies as China, Russia, Iran and Cuba.

Isolation at the U.N.

Link to original article at The Weekly Standard In defending the Iran nuclear deal to Congress, President Obama and his staff argued repeatedly that rejection would leave America in dire isolation at the United Nations. Obama can now relax. Having used slash-and-burn executive tactics to roll right over a dissenting majority in Congress and a disapproving American public, he can look forward to celebrating this deal with those more likely to applaud it, when he speaks September 28 at the 70th annual General Assembly in New York.

Nuclear Fiascoes: From Diplomatic Failure With North Korea To Debacle With Iran

With Congress due to vote by Sept. 17 on the Iran nuclear deal, there’s a warning worth revisiting. It goes like this: The president is pushing a historic nuclear agreement, saying it will stop a terror-sponsoring tyranny from getting nuclear weapons. And up pipes the democratically elected leader of one of America’s closest allies, to say this nuclear deal is mortal folly. He warns that it is filled with concessions more likely to sustain and embolden the nuclear-weapons-seeking despotism than to disarm it.

The Iran-North Korea Axis Of Atomic Weapons?

This article was originally published in Forbes As U.S. lawmakers debate the Iran nuclear deal, they are rightly concerned about Iran’s refusal to disclose its past work on nuclear weapons. Not only does this refusal deprive inspectors of a baseline for monitoring Iran’s compliance; it also deprives Congress of information about the networks that Iran’s regime might most readily employ should it choose to secretly continue its quest for the nuclear bomb.

The Iran-North Korea Strategic Alliance

Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to testify at this hearing on the Iran-North Korea Strategic Alliance, and how it will likely be affected by the nuclear deal with Iran.

Nuclear Extortion: Pioneered by North Korea, Perfected by Iran

Forbes.com With implications reaching far beyond the Middle East, the Iran nuclear deal opens the gates not to a safer world, but to proliferation on a scale likely to defy any peaceful efforts at containment. With the fatally flawed bargain announced Tuesday in Vienna, the U.S. and its negotiating partners have underscored, bigtime, the sorry lesson of the series of failed nuclear deals that helped sustain North Korea's regime all the way to the bomb: In a game of nuclear chicken, the U.S. will flinch. In the post-Cold War era, nuclear blackmail works.