The government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan of Turkey announced today that it would expel Israel’s Ambassador in Ankara and suspend all military agreements with Israel for the May 31, 2010, flotilla incident where eight Turkish nationals and one American-Turkish man died aboard the Mavi Marmara. The men died when Israeli commandos forcefully entered the ship after repeated and unanswered warnings to not enter Israeli waters without permission.
It has been almost six years since a brutal bombing in Beirut killed Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others on Valentine’s Day 2005. This week, the UN prosecutor overseeing the investigation finally submitted sealed indictments to the criminal court’s pre-trial judge as to who was responsible for the bombing. UN investigators and foreign intelligence over the last several years, however, have consistently pointed to senior Syrian and Iranian officials’ involvement. While the names of the indicted individuals are not expected to be known for eight weeks, the Obama Administration has known for quite some time that senior Syrian and Iranian officials are to blame for the brutal killings.
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…
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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is a campaign style spokesman who thrives on political spin. But after almost 18 months of acting as the official White House Spokesman, he shouldn’t be allowed to spin foreign policy facts on Meet the Press without pushback from David Gregory or other journalists. On Sunday, Gibbs tried to spin the Obama Administration’s policies on Iran and North Korea by misrepresenting the facts about the support the Obama team got at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Gibbs either doesn’t understand what happened at the UN or he is lying. Gibbs repeatedly referred to…
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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…
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Richard A. Grenell has nearly two decades of experience in all aspects of communications and public affairs. Grenell has served as the primary communications advisor for public officials at the local, state, federal and international levels, as well as for publicly traded Fortune 500 ranked companies.
