Policy & Strategy

Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carton said the U.S. needs to do more to “get in the game.”

Sen Carl Levin (D-Mich.) called Limbaugh's show "offensive" and said he was "delighted" to see advertisers drop the program.

The Treasury Department designated an Iranian as narcotics trafficker for the first time on Wednesday, accusing a general of playing a role in the Afghan heroin trade.

General Gholamreza Baghbani of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force, who is stationed near the Afghan border, has let or helped Afghan traffickers smuggle opiates and chemicals used to make heroin into and at times through Iran, according to Treasury.

In exchange, the traffickers have delivered weapons to the Taliban on behalf of the general.

“Today’s action exposes IRGC-QF involvement in trafficking narcotics, made doubly reprehensible here because it is done as part of a broader scheme to support terrorism,” David Cohen, the under Treasury secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “Treasury will continue exposing narcotics traffickers and terrorist supporters wherever they operate.” Read more...

The report came to light a day after the United States, allies agreed to resume nuclear program talks with Iran.

The Pentagon’s top leaders said Wednesday they would be ready to intervene in Syria, but warned against doing so unilaterally.

Obama contrasted the responsibilities of his office with the rhetoric from the GOP primary trail.

Talk of intervening in Syria is escalating on Capitol Hill, though there’s little consensus on what the path should be.

Ron Paul said Tuesday that President Obama's caution toward war with Iran was closer to his position than any of the other GOP candidates while reiterating his belief that the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons program was overblown.

Paul was asked about comments President Obama made Tuesday during a press conference at the White House, during which he cautioned that Republicans were discussing potential conflict with a disturbing "casualness."

"What's said on the campaign trail, those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities—they're not the commander in chief," Obama said. "When I see the casualness about which some of these folks talk about war, I think about the costs...This is not a game. There's nothing casual about it."

Paul agreed with the President, calling Republican posturing on Iran "reckless."

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday suggested GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney was guilty of dispelling "inaccurate… sloganeering and sound bites” in an op-ed he wrote slamming President Obama’s Iran policy.

The Armed Services chairman said Iran must stop enriching uranium or open facilities to inspectors to avert a strike.