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Monday's global agenda: Obama, world head to the UN
Your morning global affairs speed-read
President Obama heads to the United Nations today for the start of the 67th General Assembly. The president isn't scheduled to have any face-to-face meetings with any world leaders during his two-day visit, however, preferring to spend more time on the campaign trail.
Instead, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will serve as America's interlocutor with the world. On Monday, she's scheduled to meet with no fewer than four presidents: Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari; Libya's Mohamed Magariaf; Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai; and Egypt's Mohammed Morsi.
Obama's speech to the world body on Tuesday will be closely watched, coming just two weeks after the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya. Republicans are using the foreign policy crisis to attack the president's national security credentials; Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) penned an op-ed Sunday calling on Obama to come clean about the attack, champion Israel and explain his foreign policy. “The events in the Middle East make it clear that our allies cannot rely on us, and our enemies do not fear us,” the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee wrote. “By last week, anti-American protests had spread to at least 33 countries around the world.”
Egyptian enigma: Mohammed Morsi arrives in New York for his first trip to the United States as president of Egypt. The former Muslim Brotherhood member told The New York Times ahead of his visit that the United States can no longer expect Egypt to be as compliant to its wishes as it was under Hosni Mubarak, but that the two countries could yet become “friends.”
Iranian bluster: Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is also expected to make news with the kind of blustery opening statements at the U.N. he's delivered in the past. He predicted in an hour-long interview with The Washington Post in New York that there would be no hostilities between Israel and Iran before the U.S. election.
In other news:
Iran is pondering a preemptive strike on Israel. [NBC News]
The Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi has dealt the CIA a major setback in its intelligence-gathering efforts at a time of increasing instability in Libya, The New York Times reports.
Former President Reagan missed 99 percent of his intel briefings under the “misguided” criteria Republicans are using to bash Obama, according to The Washington Post's The Fact Checker.
The Washington Post examines U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice's performance as she takes center stage in the debate over the violence in Libya.
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