Above the Fold. Despite warnings from President Obama that there would be “consequences,” North Korea went ahead and launched a ballistic missile to honor the 100th birthday of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. The test was a dud; the missile broke up a minute into flight and fell harmlessly into the Yellow Sea west of Seoul. The launch violates a series of UN resolutions and means the end of the so-called Leap Day deal in which Washington promised to send food aid to North Korea in exchange for good behavior. Read more »

Above the Fold. Tuareg rebel fighters in northern Mali today declared the independent country of Azawad. The announcement comes on the heels of the rebels’ rapid success in driving government forces out of Northern Mali in the two weeks since Malian soldiers overthrew the country’s democratically elected president, Amadou Touré, a former general who first came to power in a coup two decades ago. (Touré oversaw Mali’s transition to democracy and then stepped down from power, earning him the nickname “the soldier of democracy.” He was elected president in 2002 and again in 2007.) The new ruling junta justified its coup on the grounds that Touré had failed to put down the Tuareg rebellion. Tuaregs, a semi-nomadic people spread across Niger, Mali, Libya, Algeria, and Burkina Faso, make up an estimated 10 percent of Mali’s population. They have been fighting for their independence since even before Mali won its own independence from France in 1960. Read more »

Above the Fold. President Obama got himself into hot water this week when he was overhead telling Russian president Dmitri Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” on issues like missile defense after the November election and that incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin should give him “space.” The incident added to a long list of presidential and vice presidential “open mic” gaffes. During a sound-check before a 1984 radio interview, Ronald Reagan warmed up by saying,  “My fellow Americans, I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” That got people’s hearts pounding. Vice President Biden famously called the signing of Obama’s health-care bill in 2010 “a big f***ing deal.” Parents of young children were not pleased. Read more »

Above the Fold. Washington, DC, owes a huge debt of gratitude to Tokyo. It was one hundred years ago next Tuesday that Japan’s largest city gave our nation’s capital 3,000 cherry trees to plant along the banks of the Tidal Basin. (No, George Washington did not plant them, and no, he did not cut down any cherry trees. That story was invented by Parson Mason Weems who wrote a not-quite-accurate biography of Washington shortly after America’s greatest president died.) First lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda, the wife of the Japanese Ambassador, planted the first two trees. Thanks to the splendid caretaking of the National Park Service, the trees have thrived. Seeing them in full bloom brings to mind the lovely words that Henry Wadworth Longfellow wrote long ago: Read more »

Above the Fold.  The tragic news that a U.S. Army sergeant slaughtered sixteen Afghans this week has scrambled the debate over the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States agree to pull back its troops to bases in Afghanistan by next year. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have discovered doubts about the wisdom of staying the course in Afghanistan.The public’s dissatisfaction with the war has hardened. A Gallup poll out this week found that 50 percent of Americans want Washington to speed up its withdrawal from Afghanistan; only 21 percent say stay the course. Read more »

Above the Fold. President Obama used his speech to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last Sunday and his White House press conference to take his critics to task for “beating the drums of war.” The president is certainly right that there has been far too much “loose talk of war.” Problems always look much easier from the vantage point of the campaign trail where “folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities.” Read more »

Above the Fold. The six Americans charged with violating Egypt’s civil-society laws finally got to come home last night. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute posted more than $4 million in bail to get the travel ban that the Egyptian government had on their employees lifted. (Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation posted another half a million dollars in bail to get its two employees out of Egypt.) The accused all pledged that they will return to Egypt in April when their trial on charges of failing to register their NGO with the Egyptian government and taking money from a foreign entity is scheduled to resume. Fat chance that happens. Read more »

Above the Fold. The protests that have erupted across Afghanistan this week in the wake of the news that coalition forces burned several Qurans have laid bare the gulf that continues to exist, and may even be widening, between many Afghans and the U.S. troops there to protect them. Allegations that Iranian and Pakistani agents have helped fan the flames of Afghan anger probably have merit, though the Taliban’s initial response to the Quran burnings was surprisingly muted. But when Afghan parliamentarians urge their countrymen “to wage jihad against Americans” and NATO-trained Afghan police tell reporters “we should burn those foreigners,” Washington is almost certainly confronting a genuine rather than an artificial sentiment. And that sentiment looks pretty straight forward: Afghans want Americans to go home. Read more »

Above the Fold. Anthony Shadid, a New York Times foreign correspondent, died yesterday while covering the ongoing political upheaval in Syria. He wasn’t cut down by the violence of what is becoming a civil war. He was instead the victim of an asthma attack. I never met him, so I don’t know whether he went by “Anthony,” or “Tony,” or something else. But I read his reporting religiously. He was exceptionally good at what he did—and his peers recognized him for it. He won not one, but two, Pulitzers for his coverage of Iraq while he worked at the Washington Post. And to judge by the testimonials that have been written and posted over the past twenty-four hours, he had no shortage of people who loved his work . Read more »

Above the Fold. The hot topic in Washington this weekend—assuming that the rumor of Kim Jong Un’s assassination is just that—is the upcoming Valentine’s Day meeting between President Obama and Xi Jinping, China’s vice president. Why all the buzz about a vice president? Because this one is expected to succeed Hu Jintao later this year as China’s leader. Read more »