In recent days, some have questioned whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was making a big mistake in appointing so many "special envoys," such as George Mitchell, to handle key trouble spots, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think they are right to question Clinton about this plethora of envoys. But I don't think the problem is that she has too many; it's that she doesn't have enough. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she may need at least a half-dozen envoys. Actually, this conflict is now broken into so many different pieces it may take a whole State Department of its own to resolve it. ...more

February 5, 2009

I've demanded it before, to no avail. ...more

August 3, 2008

After losing both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Bill Clinton expostulated: The president of the United States is not irrelevant! ...more

June 3, 2008

Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister and the leader of the Labor Party, announced Sunday that he would remain in the government, stabilizing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition despite last week's harsh report on the political and military leaders' handling of the Lebanon war in 2006. ...more

February 4, 2008

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora assured his country Saturday that the military was in control of the streets while lawmakers struggled to overcome a political crisis that has left the country without a president. ...more

November 25, 2007

The Turkish parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly authorized cross-border military attacks in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist rebels, as world leaders pleaded for restraint. ...more

October 18, 2007