Senator Chris Dodd announced today that he will not be running for re-elecion. He was one of the Senates staunchest supporters of international justice and the United Nations.
Senator Chris Dodd announced today that he will not be running for re-election as U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Dodd was first elected to the Senate in 1980, and in during his 30 year career on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he emerged as one of the more thoughtful voices of constructive U.S.
Senator Dodd's somewhat surprise decision not to stand for re-election leaves the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without its resident Latin America expert.
Susan Rice delivered a blockbuster speech titled A New Course in the World, a New Approach at the UN at New York University. Excerpts don't do it justice, but these few graphs articulate an important and profoundly new way of viewing international relations. (NB a link to her full speech is not yet available. I'll post the link as soon as it goes online.)
On Bill Clinton's successful diplomatic trip morally repugnant capitulation to North Korea, Spencer Ackerman's satirical take is all you really need to consult:
Scott Horton sounds a clarion call against the regular phenomenon of presidents' rewarding campaign supporters with choice ambassador positions. He writes, "The process cheapens our diplomatic relations and sends a bad message to the states to which these ambassadors are sent. And it’s getting cruder and greedier." I agree, but there is also a less stated reason for objecting to this process: the toll it takes on the foreign service bureaucracy.  Â
To mark the one month anniversary of the military coup that deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, select press, think tankers, members of the diplomatic (including at least a dozen ambassadors "from Canada to Chile") gathered at the Argentine Embassy in Washington for a reception for the Minister of Communications for the "Constitutional Government of Honduras" Enrique Reina. Â
If you haven't looked at Mark's thoughtful consideration on the place of the Darfur advocacy movement in today's world of Sudan policymaking, read it now.
I largely agree with Mark's analysis, but I'd offer a different possible conclusion: instead of the end of the "Save Darfur" community's role, this may be a make-or-break moment for Darfur advocacy, or even for foreign policy advocacy writ large.
On Bill Clinton's successful diplomatic trip morally repugnant capitulation to North Korea, 
