I would like to share with you two videos that bring interesting views and ideas about many important issues facing the world and more specifically the Obama administration.  The first video is more all encompassing and features Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas and Brookings Institution Saban Center’s Martin Indyk being interviewed by The Man, aka Charlie Rose.  The video covers many issues (listed below) and is centered around the new book ‘Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President.’  The book features many worthy and proven IR scholars, but how many times must we here that America has been off-balance and needs a new direction, are we really that off our historic trajectory?  

Issues covered:

• Assigning a US envoy each for Israel-Palestinian and Pakistan
• US rapproachment with Syria
• Unconditional negotiations with Iran
• Iraq falling off in its centrality to US foreign policy
• Obama’s likely slower moving democracy promotion
• Balancing with and against Russia

The second video is a short clip featuring research fellow Neil Joeck from Lawrence Livermore National Labs speaking about Obama, Pakistan, and the use of nuclear weapons.  Joeck outlines:

a possible Obama nuclear policy, which may include reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile and acknowledging weapons only be used as a deterrence.

However, Joeck says America’s stance will have little affect on Pakistan because the country does not need to use nukes as a deterrence, but rather to prevent a conventional war with India.

He also said, “From Pakistan’s point of view nuclear weapons are not ethically bad or morally bad.”