New America in the News: 2007

...Daniel Levy, a former peace negotiator for Israel [and director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation], says on his blog Prospects for Peace that it appears Israel is less committed to the US desire for regime change in Syria out of practical considerations, especially since one winner from any major political change in Syria could be that country's Muslim Brotherhood, which is aligned to Israel's enemy, the Palestinian Sunni militant group Hamas.

Barack Obama said yesterday that he would not hesitate to order military strikes against al-Qaeda targets on Pakistani soil with or without the permission of General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler.

Mr Obama's speech - one of the most belligerent by a Democratic presidential candidate - appeared to be have been prompted by Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner, who has portrayed her rival as doveish and inexperienced. Mr Obama sought to allay the impression that he would be slow to use force...

The Dream Speech Project of the U.S. in the World Initiative at New America Foundation invites Americans to ask themselves what they’d like to hear their elected leaders say to the nation about the global challenges we face and how we should engage with the rest of the world. In July, a one-hour syndicated radio program based on the Dream Speech Project aired on more than 200 stations across the country and several stations abroad.

SECRETARY OF STATE Condoleezza Rice said the United States wants to send $63 billion in military aid and weapons to the Middle East to "bolster forces of moderation and support a broader strategy to counter the negative influences of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A goal of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Middle East trip this week is to win Arab support for a proposed conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace moves, but details for that meeting are scant.

U.S. President George W. Bush announced the meeting would take place before the end of this year as part of what the White House said was a big new initiative to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

And Democrats who voted for the [No Child Left Behind] law five years ago in the glow of post-September 11 bipartisanship are unlikely to do so again now that Bush has failed to deliver the hefty budget increases for education that they expected would accompany it. For the president to persuade a Democratic Congress to reauthorize No Child Left Behind without dismantling it, the bottom line may very well be the bottom line.

WASHINGTON, July 26 -- During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq's prime minister could not be trusted.

One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr's militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran.

At a July 25 House Budget Committee hearing, several witnesses, including Bixby, endorsed the idea of reviving a statutory pay-go, which was allowed to lapse in 2002. Under that law, the CBO and the Office of Management and Budget each kept a five-year rolling scorecard of the budget effects of each law enacted to date each year. If changes in mandatory spending or revenues increased the deficit in the current year, an automatic cut in mandatory spending, called sequestration, was then required. However, during the 12 years the law was in effect, a sequestration was never ordered.

Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former managing editor of The Washington Post, will become the new chief of a Washington think tank, officials said last night.

Coll, 48, will become president and chief executive of the New America Foundation, taking over in mid-September from Ted Halstead. His appointment will be announced today.