Today marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by Soviet troops in World War II. Over a million people, most of them Jews, were killed in the camp as the Nazi government tried to implement its “Final Solution.” The Holocaust marks the point at which the world began to rethink seriously its commitment to the idea of national sovereignty, deciding instead that some crimes are never simply an “internal” matter.
US President Obama visited Saudi Arabia today to pay respects to the passing of Saudi King Abdullah. Obama has to thread a difficult needle on US-Saudi relations, acknowledging the importance of Saudi Arabia to the global economy while at the same time recognizing Saudi Arabia’s role in global terrorist activities and its human rights abuses.
James Fallows has a very pointed essay in the Atlantic on the issue of the Iranian nuclear negotiations. There will likely be a lot of discussion about stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons as the negotiations continue and as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu tries to apply pressure on the US Congress to implement additional sanctions on Iran. Fallows’s point is very straightforward: neither the US or Israel has the ability to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons if it makes the decision to do so.
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