In this week’s Views we head to Pakistan, where  Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad writes in Pakistan Today that “Unless Pakistan and US manage to remove the deep seated suspicions they entertain about one another, there is little likelihood of any significant improvement in their relations. The relations may in fact further deteriorate.” He also says of President Asif Zardari and his challenger Imran Khan in the upcoming election that: Read more »

Obama’s Reelection and the Economy

The LA Times editorial board writes that President Obama’s most immediate challenge is averting the fiscal cliff, which has the potential to send the United States back into recession if a deal isn’t reached before January. They also say that the “longer-term problem for the president will be coping with the dueling pressures of an economy that’s growing too slowly and a federal debt that’s growing too fast, largely because of the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid.” Read more »

President Barack Obama was reelected to a second term (WashPost) Tuesday, winning a majority of both the electoral vote and the popular vote, and now faces a tough road ahead on economic and national security issues. Read more »

President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney meet for their third and final debate tonight, which will focus on foreign policy topics (NYT). Read more »

President Barack Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney are nearly tied in a new Pew survey on which candidate would do a better job making wise foreign policy decisions, with 47 percent favoring Obama and 43 percent choosing Romney. This represents a gain of fifteen points for Romney since September. Read more »

Vice President Joe Biden and vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan faced off in the only vice presidential debate of the campaign 2012, covering international topics from Iran to Syria to Afghanistan in what turned out to be a foreign-policy heavy discussion (NBC). Here’s what they had to say on Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan. Read more »

GOP nominee Mitt Romney and other Republicans continued to criticize President Obama’s handling of the Benghazi consulate attack ahead of today’s first congressional hearing (Politico) on the matter. Romney has accused Obama of mischaracterizing the attack and taking too long to acknowledge that it was an act of terror (WashPost). Read more »

On Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy Speech:

A New York Times editorial criticized a number of points that Romney outlined is his speech Monday, faulting the lack of specifics and stance on the Middle East. Read more »

Protests in Tehran over the sharp decline in value of the rial, caused in part by U.S. sanctions, potentially upsets “GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s efforts to paint President Barack Obama’s Iran policy as ineffectual,” reports Politico. Read more »

On Immigration

In a piece for the Huffington Post, Mallika Dutt accuses both President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney of inaction on the immigration issue. Read more »