In the past week, the Bush administration has raised the intensity of its rhetoric on Iran to dangerously absurd levels.Last week, President Bush suggested that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons could lead to World War III, which White House press secretary Dana Perino later played down as suggesting nothing more than the seriousness with which …
Tag: Cheney
Men are not angels
Working in the office of a Japanese Dietman and watching Japan's "sausage-making" process has been valuable in a number of ways — many of which I have documented here one way or another — but one lesson that I have left largely unmentioned is my renewed appreciation for the American political system.No political system is …
Confluence of issues
It seems that in the aftermath of "The Facts" advert in the Washington Post, the House Foreign Affairs committee is prepared to move forward (Hat tip: Japan Probe) with the Honda resolution on the comfort women issue — and that there is something to the news emanating from Korean sources that Vice President Cheney in …
Cheney comes and goes
The vice president has swooped in, addressed US navy personnel in Yokosuka, talked and dined with Prime Minister Abe and Foreign Minister Aso (I wonder if Aso had anything to say about the "comfort women" resolution currently being debated in Congress), met with the parents of abductee Yokota Megumi, and is now en route to …
Reading on the six-party agreement
With Vice President Cheney in Tokyo to reassure the Abe Cabinet that the US "understands" Japan's need for progress on abductions, it is worthwhile to look at a couple essays that look into the conditions surrounding the preliminary six-party agreement reached in Beijing.First, in the Washington Post, Philip Zelikow, onetime Condoleeza Rice co-author and until …
Feeling the chill
The chill to which I'm referring, of course, is the chill that has set in between Tokyo and Washington.Without looking particularly hard, I found two very clear signs of a growing appreciation among Japanese opinion makers that the US-Japan alliance is experiencing a bit of turbulence.On the front page of today's Yomiuri, in an article …
No surprise here
The Japan Times is reporting here that Vice President Cheney will not be meeting Defense Minister Kyuma when he visits Japan later this month.This was all too expected, being entirely consistent with how the Bush administration has dealt with critics throughout its tenure.Not really much more to say here, other than that this is another …
Tobias S. Harris 