The Political Whore

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Iran’s missile launch on Wednesday is not making President Barack Obama’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East any easier. This demonstration, however, could be seen as more of a reason for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to embrace the two-state solution.

Netanyahu has made it clear that he sees Iran as a threat.  On Tuesday, after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said:

“[Iran] is a great danger to all of us, to Israel specifically and to the moderate Arab regime, and to America.  Especially if this regime were to arm itself or arm terrorists with nuclear weapons, the consequences could be unimaginable.”

Here’s video of the Israeli leader in Washington, after the jump.

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor
Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday’ with Chris Wallace this past weekend to discuss U.S. foreign policy. The major topic of discussion was North Korea’s probable launch in the next week. Concerning the launch, Wallace asked “and there’s nothing that we can do about it?”

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.

The New York Times on Tuesday reported on a letter President Barack Obama sent to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev supposedly offering to terminate the development of the missile defense system in Europe if Russia became a key player in halting Iran’s nuclear program. Later that day, Obama clarified the content of the letter saying that the NYT article didn’t “accurately characterize the letter.”

“What I said in the letter is what I have said publicly, which is that the missile defense that we have talked about deploying is directed toward, not Russia, but Iran, and what I said … was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defense system.”

The NYT article may have mischaracterized the letter if it led readers to believe that the White House was using the missile defense system in Europe as a bargaining chip. I don’t believe that was the intention of the article nor do I think that Obama plans on using the system as a bargaining chip. There is another concern though – that the topic of the defense system even came up at all in the letter. Here’s why…

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