International Affairs

Ron Paul surging in Iowa, just as we learn Kim Jong Il is dead and his 20-something-year-old son is taking over as the heir to the crazy dictator, is unnerving. The first thing the son, Kim Jong Un, does on Monday morning to make his mark and give us a clue who he is and what he's about, is to test-fire a short-range missile. North Korea then, with a straight face, claims it was routine and completely unrelated to the death of their dictator and the need to flex a military muscle or two. This, just weeks after we learn North Korea is now in possession of mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that can constantly be on the move so that they aren't easily detected or tracked. North Korea has nukes and can strike before Ron Paul even has the chance to take his head out of the sand.

Last year, when the idea of the Tea Party was beginning to catch on, The New York Times ran a story on the rising Tea Party in Israel. On stage was Moshe Feiglin, an Israeli leader and I would say authentic, indigenous folk hero. Feiglin is the head of the Jewish Leadership Movement, which seeks to turn “the state of Jews into a Jewish state.” Feiglin and company were Tea Party before Tea Party was cool and before it became loud. I was writing about the Tea Party at the beginning and for two years at least, every day, Ron Paul and I were on the same page. It was why I first became interested in Feiglin. As Paul rises in Iowa he will carry America, whether he wins or not. He will not go away. The same can be said of Feiglin.

Something important happened last Friday in Brussels, although you’d never guess from the media coverage here (The Washington Post relegated coverage of the EU summit to page 19 yesterday).

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to walk away from a budget tightening deal with the other 26 members of the European Union aimed at saving the euro has caused upheaval within the ruling U.K. coalition, roiled relations between Britain and the rest of the EU and put the issue of Britain’s future membership of the EU back on the table.

A clever young Israeli writes that Bathsheba should be looked at as the cosmic feminine principle of the Jewish people, the equal and opposite counterforce to the cosmic male principal, David. The history of the Jews and Israel’s four external children in the outside world — Orthodox, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant — all evolved from one moment between these two. I think the term for that moment is coniunctio; the sacred marriage, the marriage of the divine spirit. It was the moment that produced Solomon, his temple and his kingdom. The moment time rose from an empty desert to become the world.

Rigged elections are nothing new in Russia, but this is the first time that smartphones have broadcast the brazen ballot stuffing live on the Internet.

What is the official reaction? Instead of heeding calls from such people as former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, who is demanding a fresh election, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed Hillary Clinton personally for instigating the street protests that followed the election. He criticized her for her outspoken remarks in which she rightly talked about the Russian people’s right to a free election.

Part I

We live in an age of global protest, global unrest and global demands for change in a world where the vast majority of men and women believe they are being hurt and cheated by forces of selfishness and greed in politics and finance. In the current campaign Ron Paul is one voice for a certain segment of this global demand for change. Politics in America and around the world is a contest to decide who will give voice and power to this movement and demand for change.

Obama campaigned for change but did not deliver it, which is the major reason his poll numbers are very far down. Mitt Romney, distrusted by 70 percent of his own party, embodies the layoff-oriented Wall Street economics and shape-shifting opportunism of a politics without conscience. Which is why Democrats will never support him and a majority of his own party desperately wants someone other than him.

Two hundred and fifty U.S. Marines in Australia doesn’t sound threatening.

But President Obama’s decision to deploy the Marines — rising to 2,500 — on a permanent basis in Darwin from next summer on is a powerful symbol for Beijing, which in the past few days has been told to act like a “grown-up” by the U.S. leader.

I’m all for playing hardball with China, and Obama probably thinks that talking tough will play well at home. “The United States is a Pacific power and we’re here to stay,” he told Australians in remarks that were actually designed for an assertive China.

I’ve had little interest in Israel in my life. It seemed a lost cause. Jerusalem is the timeless and endless center of the inner life of the West; her rabbis the exclusive guardians to her mysteries. That Bill Clinton could lay claim to it was an abomination.

I perked up when Moshe Feiglin found support. He recognized and represented Israel at its essence; a sacred place which should only be understood in sacred terms and in thousand-year historical cycles. Soldier, sabra, leader of Manhigut Yehudit, which seeks to turn the “State of Jews into the Jewish State.” For several years now I as a non-Jew have appreciated his weekly commentary on Torah. This week I had the opportunity to speak to him.

"I can't stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, according to CNN.

Obama replied, "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day.”

In an off-mic situation, Obama and Sarkozy are discovered not to trust Netanyahu, and Sarkozy went so far as to call him a liar. Not only did Obama refuse to defend him, but chimed in by saying he has to "deal" with the Israeli prime minister every day.

Now that the Libyan sideshow is out of the way, and Syria has been placed in a holding pattern, Iran’s nuclear program is back at the top of the international agenda.

Tomorrow or Wednesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to release a report that, according to media leaks, will say that Iran has been conducting research in areas that could only be used for producing a bomb. The question, as ever, is what to do about it.