“Security Council” on The Daily Caller

VIENNA (AP) — Syria has reneged on a promise to quickly cooperate with a U.N. probe of its nuclear activities, saying it won’t be able to provide more information to challenge an assessment that it tried to build a plutonium-producing reactor until October, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. (more)

“Humanitarian imperialism.” I think that label will stick. And in a true empire–in this case, the empire of UN approved human rights enforcement–war never really ends. Always someone to protect somewhere. Imagine living in imperial Britain in the mid-19th century. There would almost always be a war or police action–actual shooting and killing–going on.** For a true empire to work– even, or perhaps especially, a humanitarian empire–war has to be routinized. You’ve got two wars going already? No need to change the president’s schedule to start a third. Tour Latin America. Talk about your NCAA brackets. Don’t give a big speech–I mean, you don’t call a press conference every time the police run a sobriety checkpoint do you? The relevant international governing bodies have already determined the appropriate application of force. And “all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”  (more)

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has been on the job for 18 months now, but she doesn’t have much to show for it.  Her record of accomplishments and performance on behalf of the American people is embarrassing.  While Rice has been active in the social scene of Washington and The White House, a study released by the uber-serious non-profit group Security Council Report suggests that the past year has been the most inactive Security Council since 1991.  Rice missed crucial negotiations on Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium, she failed to speak out when Iran was elected to the Commission on the Status of Women and three other UN Committees, she failed to call-out Libya when they were elected to the UN’s Human Rights Council, she recently delivered an Iran sanctions resolution with the least support Iran resolutions have ever had and she called her one and only press conference with the UN Secretary General on the issue of texting while driving.  For an administration that promised to utilize the UN and improve our reputation around the world, its dinner party circuit strategy isn’t making America more secure. (more)

As I witnessed the birth of my first child on July 4th, screams echoed throughout the delivery room. The anguish wasn’t coming from my stoic wife, but rather from the doctor, who was irate over Obamacare. After practicing medicine for 17 years, her malpractice insurance now represents half of her annual salary: a sum she must borrow with interest in order to pay in one lump sum. (more)

Our lives continue to be defined by the Cold War, even as the phrase itself has devolved into an artifact of language. (more)

After 17 months of diplomacy, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was only able to get 12 of the 15 countries on the United Nations Security Council to vote to place increased sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, Rice jumped to defend the Obama Administration’s lackluster performance by claiming that previous Iran resolutions were not unanimous during the Bush Administration and that there were “abstentions”. Her strategy to minimize the Bush team’s performance in order to make her own poor performance look better isn’t factual. After so much hype about President Barack Obama’s foreign policy engagement strategy, the Obama UN resolution was remarkably weak, took too long to get and received less support than Bush’s team got in producing FIVE Security Council resolutions on Iran. (more)

Russia had earlier insisted on its right to carry out the air defense contract. Its rethink underlined how the tolerance of non-Western big powers for Iran’s disputed nuclear activity is fading, and could deny Iran formidable protection against any military attacks on its atomic installations. (more)

Washington is a town that is all too accustomed to watching phenoms fall flat. Every few years, a new telegenic messiah arrives to walk upon the waters of the Potomac, and promptly sinks. (more)

Over the past few weeks, as federal government confusion has become all too obvious in the Gulf, political commentators have delighted in debating whether the oil spill crisis has become Obama’s “Katrina.” The reason for this is simple. The argument allows those on the right to somehow demonstrate that all presidents make mistakes, while pointing out the other side’s hypocrisy. For those on the left, it’s another opportunity to drag President Bush’s name through the mud, blame him for a crisis he is two years removed from and to remind those on the left that the last guy would’ve made this all worse. (more)

If there is a recurring tale in this new century, it is that the Gulf Coast is where political fortunes go to die. The Gulf in the 21^st century has become the delicate-yet-furious eco-nightmare in which central planners and corporate heads get bogged down, before having their heads placed upon the electronic guillotine of cable news. (more)

The past couple of weeks have found Turkey at the center of a lot of international news. First, there’s this week’s news—the deal with Iran that Turkey and Brazil helped broker, in which Tehran would ship half its stockpile of nuclear fuel to Ankara in exchange for fuel rods. It’s an interesting agreement that became much less relevant on Tuesday when the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany all agreed to pursue tougher sanctions against Iran—precisely the outcome Tehran had furiously been trying to avoid. (more)

Few things announce an open audition for the bizarre like a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The subsequent debate makes our presidential races look mild in comparison. This is the byproduct of “the people” having no direct control over the confirmation process. Nothing turns up the volume on crazy like the recognition that the composition of the Supreme Court is entrusted to people you don’t trust. (more)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country’s disputed nuclear program, just as pressure mounts for tougher sanctions. (more)

Partisanship, political fighting and public rancor have always fueled the ideas that matter—the revolutionary advances that elevate man’s station in life. Throughout history, hotly-contested ideas are a sign that people are thinking. We are in such times. Times which, as Thomas Paine noted, “Try men’s souls.” Yet partisanship is condemned each day as indecent. Many incumbents speak of bipartisanship, not as a vice to protect the status quo, but as if it’s a virtue. Last year our Secretary of State declared, “Ideology is so yesterday.” (more)

Senior Obama administration officials recently have hinted they are running out of patience with efforts to engage Burma’s military regime. The futility of engagement with these thugs should have been obvious after the junta unveiled election laws requiring the country’s leading democratic political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to expel its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other jailed party members in order to participate in upcoming elections. The NLD had no choice but to boycott and now the party faces dissolution. Last week, 22 of Burma’s ruling generals—many of whom have blood on their hands—resigned from the military to form a new political party. This travesty is merely the latest step in the junta’s cynical plan to put a veneer of elected civilian legitimacy over their entrenched rule. (more)

If government insists upon regulating everything except itself, then those energies should be directed at a rather loud and rude killer: cell phones. (more)

One of the more endearing qualities of the American people is their appetite for excess. Bureaucrats have fashioned careers on wagging their plump fingers at excess, and documentary filmmakers built an industry on reprimanding free people for living their lives, but then again, these merchants of guilt could find fault with box seats at Wrigley. (more)