The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the vice presidential debate; presidential elections in Venezuela; and nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the first presidential debate; Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s visit to the United States; freedom of speech; and Georgia’s parliamentary elections. Read more »

CFR.org just posted a First Take that I did on President Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly this morning.  The speech was fairly predictable, and it was undoubtedly aimed as much at American voters as it was to the delegates in the auditorium. Obama denounced the recent wave of attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities, defended freedom of speech, called for the condemnation of hatred and intolerance directed at any religion, and warned yet again of the dangers that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the upcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly; Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the United States; and China and Japan’s bickering over some tiny islands. Read more »

The Pew Research Center is out with a new poll on American reactions to last week’s attacks on the U.S. embassies in Cairo and Libya. Contrary to speculation that the attacks would hurt President Obama politically—speculation that likened Obama to Jimmy Carter and the Iranian hostage crisis–Pew’s results suggest that at least among people following the story—the attacks  have done more to hurt Governor Romney. Read more »

CFR.org just posted an interview I did with former New York Times correspondent Bernard Gwertzman looking at the role foreign policy will likely play in the remaining two months of the presidential campaign. Along the way we discussed President Obama’s acceptance speech last night, reviewed where the candidates stand on major issues like Iran’s nuclear program, and recalled how another tight presidential race was tipped in part by a candidate’s misstep in a critical foreign policy debate. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks; the home stretch of the presidential campaign; and what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will decide at next week’s meeting of the Fed’s policymaking committee. Read more »

The Republican National Convention that wrapped up last night made two things clear: foreign policy will be at best a secondary theme in the GOP push to unseat President Barack Obama, and when the Romney campaign does turn to foreign policy, it will be heavy on criticism and light on specifics about its preferred policies. Read more »

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi’s decision to cashier several generals; the impending expiration of the UN observer mission in Syria; World Humanitarian Day; and Russia joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). Read more »

CNN’s Jamie Crawford has a nice piece summarizing Paul Ryan’s foreign policy views. Besides offering a sense of some of the countries the GOP vice presidential nominee has visited in recent years, the post has a link to an interview that Ryan gave back in May to the Washington Examiner. Two of the questions dealt with foreign policy: Read more »