TRAVELS WITH JOE — Sen. Joe Lieberman told Italian guests at a recent American Embassy dinner in Rome that Barack Obama would, in his view, be the Democratic presidential candidate, but that John McCain would win the November presidential election. Embassy staffers speculated to one guest that if McCain does get the White House, Lieberman would be his Secretary of Defense. Lieberman made a side trip to Rome while traveling with McCain in Europe and the Middle East. He said he had met Vatican officials and discussed Iraq. Pope Benedict XVI is deeply concerned over the plight of Iraq’s Christians [...]
George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin made what looks to be their last personal attempt as incumbent presidents to resolve the protracted dispute over European missile defenses at their Sochi summit this weekend. Despite several rounds of detailed discussions in Moscow and Washington during the past month, Russian officials continue to object to U.S. plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses (BMD) in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russian representatives claim that the stated American justification for the BMD deployments — that the systems are needed to defend the United States and European countries against an emerging Iranian missile threat — [...]
I’m of two minds after reading Timothy Garton Ash’s brutal takedown of the Bush administration’s Europe and Russia policies (via FPA’s Diplomacy blog). Ash compares President Bush’s divisive insistence on missile defense and opportunistic “Coalitions of the Willing” with George (H.W.) Bush’s skillful navigation of the post-Cold War challenges of integrating “New Europe” into “Old Europe” without alienating Russia. And on the one hand, the Bush administration’s policies seem to reflect an obvious hostility to both the Bush 41 approach and objectives. But on the other, if you take a look at the U.S.-Russia Strategic Framework Declaration signed by Presidents [...]
