Word: diplomatized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Perhaps the best-informed analysis comes from a Western diplomat who recently visited Pyongyang and talked with senior government officials including members of the Kim family. This diplomat describes the North Korean attitude as a siege mentality, desperate to maintain itself, fearful of attack. He does not think Kim Il Sung is looking for an economic payoff or playing a self-aggrandizing game of brinkmanship. Rather he is obsessed with assuring the survival not just of the regime but also of the very country he created. The diplomat compares Kim's quest for nuclear power with French President Charles...
...Iraq is anathema to the U.S. But Washington will reluctantly go along with the Security Council plan because the U.S. does not want to offend Turkey, an important friend that allows American jets based on its soil to patrol Iraqi airspace. "Turkey is a good ally," says an American diplomat at the U.N. "We are sympathetic to Turkey's needs...
...peacekeeping force already in Rwanda to police an agreement last August for power sharing with Tutsi rebels in the Hutu-led government was hastily reduced from 2,600 to 470 when the massacres began and 10 Belgian blue helmets were killed. The signal sent, says a senior African diplomat, "was, Look, you are on your own. You may do whatever you want...
...consensus around the globe is that in little more than a year, the President has squandered a distressing amount of the status the U.S. enjoys as the sole superpower, winner of the cold war and victor in Desert Storm. Clinton may not hear much of this face to face; diplomatic politesse precludes that. But he might be surprised if he read intelligence reports based on eavesdropping on the private conversations of foreign leaders. One U.S. official who has done so calls the criticism of leaders in Britain, France, Germany and Japan "scathing." He elaborates: "They see us as in disarray...
...same kind of talk comes from U.S. foreign policy professionals in and outside the Administration. Says a distinguished career diplomat serving abroad: "This Administration seems incapable of even asking the questions, much less providing the answers. It is difficult to point to anything where they have genuinely developed a policy, as opposed to a set of changing positions." Paul Goble, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, phrases the same criticism as a blunt question: "If we're the last remaining superpower, why do we act like a banana republic...