“No president since the modern state of Israel [was formed] has failed to stand by our ally Israel — only President Obama. …The president spurned the president of Egypt when he took his first foreign trip to Cairo… In May he even said that Israel should retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders… Obama’s State Department now designates Jerusalem as an international city and in a bizarre move our State Department will not even acknowledge that Jerusalem belongs to Israel.” Read full article > >

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Michele Bachmann at CPAC: History through a partisan lens

The use of unarmed craft to protect American buildings and personnel may foreshadow an expansion of such operations to the United States government’s diplomatic arm.

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Iraq Is Angered by U.S. Drones Patrolling Its Skies

Hijackings have declined sharply in the past year, but where interdiction ends, a problem begins: what to do with the detained pirates?

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News Analysis: Seized Pirates in Legal Limbo, With No Formula for Trials

Ambassador Michael A. McFaul has arrived as the Kremlin tries to portray antigovernment protests as being driven by the United States, but he has no intention of keeping a low profile.

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In Russia, New U.S. Envoy, McFaul, Ruffles Feathers

The Taliban’s willingness to open a political office in Qatar represents a critical point in the United States’s attempt to negotiate an end to the Afghanistan war.

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Against Odds, Path Opens Up for U.S.-Taliban Talks

Mira D. Patel Special adviser, secretary’s policy planning staff, State Department   Best known for: Serving on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s policy planning staff, working on issues that affect women, refugees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. She has played a behind-the-scenes role on two U.S. global initiatives regarding gay rights, and women in public service. She recently flew to Geneva, where Clinton gave a speech to diplomats and activists on human rights for the LGBT community. Patel is also engaged in preparing for Thursday’s first colloquium of the Women in Public Service project, an effort to identify, train and support female political leaders worldwide. Read full article > >

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Fed Faces: Mira D. Patel

The quarter-million confidential State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks last year have been public on the Web for months. The government is pretending otherwise.

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State Dept. Withholds Cables That WikiLeaks Posted

Manchester, N.H., has taken in more than 2,000 refugees from countries like Somalia and Sudan, but officials there say they now need a break.

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Halt Is Sought to Manchester, N.H., Refugee Resettlement

The Obama administration has expressed concern that the failure to move to civilian control could undermine the defining revolt of the Arab Spring.

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U.S. Warns Egypt as Military Stalls Transition

Career members of the Foreign Service are none too pleased with comments made this week by Texas Gov. Rick Perry regarding the purpose of the State Department and U.S. diplomats serving abroad. “I’m not sure our State Department serves us well,” Perry, a Republican presidential candidate, said Tuesday on a radio program with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. “I’m not talking about the secretary of state here. I’m talking about the career diplomats and the secretary of state, who all too often may not be making decisions or giving advice to the administration that’s in this country’s best interest.” Read full article > >

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Diplomats respond bluntly to Rick Perry

A group of exchange students sponsored by the State Department spent thousands of dollars to experience life in the United States, but what they got were arduous shifts in a factory and no help when they complained.

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Hershey Exchange Student Warnings Were Ignored

In the rush to take the capital, rebel forces who captured military garrisons along the way often looted weapons depots and guarded them only occasionally at best.

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U.S. Sending Contractors to Secure Libya’s Weapons

In the rush to take the capital, rebel forces who captured military garrisons along the way often looted weapons depots and guarded them only occasionally at best.

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U.S. Sending Contractors to Secure Libya’s Weapons

President Obama will push for what he calls the “toughest sanctions” to punish Iranian officials whom he accused of complicity in a suspected plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

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Obama Vows to Punish Iran in Alleged Plot Against Envoy

TRIPOLI — The United States is planning to dispatch dozens of former military personnel to Libya to help track down and destroy surface-to-air missiles from Moammar Gaddafi’s stockpiles that U.S. officials worry could be used by terrorists to take down passenger jets. The weapons experts are part of a rapidly expanding $30 million program to secure Libya’s conventional weapons in the wake of the most violent conflict to occur in the Arab Spring, according to State Department officials who provided new details of the effort. Read full article > >

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U.S. launches campaign to track down Libyan missiles