Robert Lane Greene

July 11, 2008

On Friday, I appeared on NPR’s “Day to Day” program to discuss “Obama, Insha’allah?”

July 10, 2008

With Josie Delap

Think the whole world loves Barack? Arab opinion-makers don’t
“What are Thomas Friedman’s Arab equivalents, the opinion leaders of the Middle East, saying about Obama? A famously diverse group–ranging from idealistic reformers to moralizing Islamists–the Arab world’s pundits are almost unanimous in their skepticism of him, offering a sharp corrective to the narrative of a world united in its ardor for Obama…“

June 17, 2008

John McCain faces a variety of pitfalls

“In general, as with any candidate, Mr McCain must find a way to please his party’s stalwart supporters, while also reaching out to independents. But his room to manoeuvre is unusually tight. The Republican Party has several ‘bases’, and courting each of them can be tricky in this year’s climate…“

May 30, 2008

What chance of progress in tackling Iran’s nuclear programme?

“This week’s IAEA report seems to set Iran and the West up for continued confrontation, with the usual suspects at the UN—Russia and China—working hard to limit the bite of sanctions on the country. As the rhetoric gets tougher this year, with elections looming in both America and Iran, politicians in neither country can afford to be seen to be soft on the other…“

May 18, 2008

California legalises gay marriage; how will the rest of America respond?
“The gay-marriage decision in California may also stoke debate on the broader issue of courts setting public policy. John McCain gave a recent speech decrying “activist judges”, conservative code for judges inventing rights (gay rights, the right to abortion and the like) that are not spelled out in plain language in the laws and the constitution. But Mr McCain did not mention abortion or gay marriage by name. He may now be tempted to throw the “God didn’t create Adam and Steve” crowd some red meat by criticising the Californian court’s decision. But he cannot support a federal marriage amendment without appearing to be a flip-flopper…“

May 7, 2008

I moderated a great discussion on two new books between Bill Overholt (Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics) and Parag Khanna (The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order) at the Asia Society last Thursday. The audio is here.

April 30, 2008

Candidates’ views on oil and the climate

“Not much of Mrs Clinton’s plan would make a difference. Her suggestion that no more oil should now be added to America’s nearly-full Strategic Petroleum Reserve would have only a marginal impact. Hitting oil companies with windfall taxes may generate revenue, which Mrs Clinton wants to put into research for green technologies (and hopefully generating what she calls “green-collar” jobs in hard-hit rust-belt states). But higher taxes could also discourage exploration and investment, curtailing supply and driving up oil prices again. The most obvious thing that the government could do to lower oil prices would be to cut taxes, as Mr McCain and Mrs Clinton suggest. But this, of course, would encourage driving and would send more profits to the oil companies and to the exporting countries …“

April 14, 2008

In an election year, American politicians are reluctant to talk about trade on its own merits

“Several factors are making trade a hard sell in America these days. One is a constant: the benefits of trade are spread fairly evenly around the economy; the costs, however, tend to show up more obviously on a few sectors, whose less competitive workers and producers will be disadvantaged by the deal. This gives politicians less clout when defending trade deals amid the cries of the afflicted. At the time of a credit-crunch, a mortgage crisis and general talk of recession, which has heightened economic anxieties, making the case for trade is harder still …“

February 13, 2008

Barack Obama wins more primaries and appeals to a wide range of voters; Hillary Clinton is on the back foot

“Hillary Clinton is running out of good reasons for why she should lose so many different states and by such big margins. Virginia, especially, is hard to ignore. Its demographic mix is not too different from neighbouring Tennessee, which Mrs Clinton won handily on Super Tuesday. It sends over 80 delegates to the summer’s nominating convention. And although not usually considered to be a swing state, the suburbs of Washington, DC, and the capital (Richmond) are growing more Democratic, giving the party a hope of snatching it from its usual place in the Republican win column come November.

Moreover, Mr Obama won nearly every significant group: among men and women, church-goers and church-avoiders, liberals and moderates, the well and the less educated. He nearly tied with her among white voters and took 90% of blacks. Most polls had predicted Mr Obama would win; none said that he would win by 28 percentage points …“

February 8, 2008

Where it went wrong for Mitt Romney—and right for John McCain

“Republicans like their leaders to be steadfast. So social conservatives shunned Mr Romney for Mike Huckabee, who won a clutch of southern states on ‘Super Tuesday’. Moderate conservatives and independents joined the reinvigorated Mr McCain. Now Mr McCain’s biggest problem will be convincing Republicans that he is truly one of them and getting them out to vote, without alienating the independents he has always depended on …”