Outside the Beltway

Another step forward for U.S.-Cuban relations.

ISIS apparently now has a foothold in Libya, and is making inroads in Yemen.

Quietly, oil prices have been falling for months now. That’s potentially a very big deal.

Why are chemical weapons a “red line” in a war where so many have been killed?

We’re almost certainly going to launch punitive strikes against Syria. They’ll almost certainly be ineffective.

Al Qaeda may be up to something, so take no chances.

At what point do science and magic converge? And what are the potential costs?

The office working to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba has been closed.

Osama’s driver, who was convicted of only technical crimes, has had his conviction overturned on a technicality.

The Romney campaign’s critique of the President’s foreign policy record is weak, and based on bad history.

Capitulating to a mob is never a good idea.

For the fourth day, American and other embassies became the focus of mass protests in many Muslim nations.

I was more amused than I should have been by the YahooNews headline “Obama Says George Clooney Friendship Born in Sudan, Not Hollywood.”

The White House and the Pentagon are buildings, not unitary actors.

Meet Flame. A cyber threat that makes Stuxnet seem like child’s play.

The cause of the pain you’re feeling at the pump has little to do with domestic energy policy.

This is looking less crazy, less sudden, and less an exercise in presidential whimsy than it seemed.

Obama is trying to get into Guinness under “US President with Most Simultaneous Wars”

Ahead of his big foreign policy speech, Mitt Romney has unveiled his “Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team” which “will assist Governor Romney as he presents his vision for restoring American leadership in the world and securing our enduring interests and ideals abroad.”

President Obama explained his position on the Palestinian statehood resolution today, but one wonders if anyone listened.

The selective application of international law is here to stay.

The government in northern Sudan is engaging in military attacks against the people of Southern Kordofan.

While President Obama has had some amusing gaffes on his trip to London, including getting the year wrong in the guest book and an awkward toast to the Queen, his speech to Parliament today hit all the right notes.

Events in Syria, and the world’s response to them, are revealing the moral bankruptcy of the justification for the war in Libya.

What happens if Southern Sudan’s independence referendum succeeds?

The president has declared an end to combat operations in Iraq. But soldiers assigned there still draw combat pay.