Outside the Beltway

President Obama’s approval numbers have dropped 9 points since the Egypt crisis broke out.

Is American policy in the Middle East dictated by national interest or interest groups?

While most Americans consider themselves “conservatives,” some conservatives exclude most Americans from the definition.

One Republican Congressman is calling on President Obama to stand firmly behind our “friend” in Cairo, even though there’s little evidence we can trust him.

The GOP is facing a battle between its fiscal conservatism and i’s military adventurism.

Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

Time for midterms.

Brief takes on foreign affairs

The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.

Moqtada al-Sadr is back in Iraq, and it’s a good thing we’re on our way out.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

With just over a week to go before the 112th Congress convenes, battle lines are already being drawn in battle over the defense budget.

A capsule look at the world situation as 2010 draws to a close.

Sarah Palin waded into the foreign policy pool today with a piece about Iran, and it was about as empty as most of the other ideas on Iran that we’ve heard over the last six years or so from everyone else.

Is Obama really the most liberal President ever? Not really.

What will Republicans think of a candidate for President who admitted to smoking marijuana as recently as two years ago?

The hunters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

According to a new Gallup poll, President Obama is not only less popular than George W. Bush, but the only president from the last half century less popular is Dick Nixon.

The Feds famously got notorious mobster Al Capone on tax evasion charges. Will WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be done in by sex crimes?

After 1 1/2 years in office, President Obama has yet to grant a single request for a pardon or clemency, continuing a thirty year trend in which the Presidential pardon power has nearly fallen in to disuse.

A crippling, and technologically advanced, computer virus and attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists lead to only one conclusion; someone is doing everything they can short of military action to make sure Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons.

The two English language newspapers who have been Julian Assange’s accomplices in disseminating stolen secrets defend themselves.

The diplomatic ramifications of the latest Wikileaks leaks are just starting to emerge and may place some countries in very embarrassing positions.

A new round of Wikileaks documents is out, and it opens the door on diplomatic correspondence previously hidden from the public.

NATO-Russia cooperation on missile defense is a welcome step forward.

Conservative Republicans who are typically deferential to the military are ignoring the advice of the military leadership on the new START Treaty.

Is the current media environment a problem for proper political discourse?

Hamid Karazi says that the United States needs to reduce it’s military presence in his country. Perhaps we should listen to him.

Democratic consultants Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell offer some free advice for President Obama. It’s worth every penny.

Of the five countries that use the death penalty the most, only one is a democracy.

Will the incoming “Tea Party” caucus in the House and Senate force the GOP to reconsider its views on foreign policy? Don’t count on it.

David Broder offers up some odd ideas on the relationship between a war with Iran and the economy.

It only seems fair to take an entire tweet, lengthy though it may be, into account when reacting.

We already knew that Hamid Karzai was corrupt, now we know he takes bribes from the Iranians.

In what is being described as the largest leak of secret documents in U.S. history, Wikileaks has made public more than 400,000 documents related to the seven year long Iraq War.

The Tea Party movement doesn’t seem to have a coherent view on foreign policy. Which means that a Tea Party victory will just mean more of the same Republican neo-conservatism.

The story about the private security guards who “arrested” a journalist at a Joe Miller campaign event just keeps getting stranger by the day.

Venezuela have reached a series of agreement on energy. Should the US be concerned?

The “Ronald Reagan” that many of today’s conservatives wish today’s Republicans were more like didn’t actually exist.

If it’s September, it must be time for Mahmoud Ahmadinjad to stand up before the United Nations General Assembly and say something completely insane.

Is there a quiet cyberwar going on and we are just starting to notice it?

According to a new book from Bob Woorward, American policy in Afghanistan is the result of a decision making process that can only be described as chaotic at best.

Fidel Castro is back in the public eye, but he’s singing a slightly different tune now.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart is suffering a little New Media embarrassment after writing a blog post based on comments by a Congressman who doesn’t exist.

Will Israel attack Iran ? You’d better hope not.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas’ new book, AMERICAN TALIBAN: HOW WAR, SEX, SIN, AND POWER BIND JIHADISTS AND THE RADICAL RIGHT, continues a long tradition in political polemics.