Foreign Policy & National Security

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez is seeking a seat on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, the group U.N. Watch reports. The independent watchdog group also says that Pakistan is additionally “slated to run unopposed for seats on the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council this year.”

The case of Hamza Kashgari, the 23-year-old ex-columnist for the Saudi Arabian daily newspaper Al-Bilad (The Land), has exposed the convoluted internal situation in the desert kingdom. The controversy began on the birthday of Muhammad, when Kashgari wrote an imaginary dialogue with the Muslim progenitor in three tweets.

NBC reports: "Iran would take pre-emptive action against its enemies if it felt its national interests were endangered, the deputy head of the Islamic Republic's armed forces was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying Tuesday. . . .

The prospect of Iran achieving nuclear breakout capability is becoming more imminent. Reports this past weekend indicate that Iran has built the infrastructure needed for operating more efficient and advanced centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.

Even the Los Angeles Times notices that President Obama has gone soft on Iran:

Thirty-four lawmakers sent a letter to the White House on Thursday in response to news reports that President Obama had ordered his staff to study the option of reducing America’s nuclear deterrent by 80 percent—down to as few as 300 deployed strategic nuclear warheads. The United States currently has a cap of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads under the so-called New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the controversial arms control pact with Russia that passed the Senate in December 2010.

Xi Jinping, the heir apparent to the leadership of the Chinese Communist regime, came to America to meet the president, dine with the vice president, visit a farm in Iowa—following in the 1959 footsteps of Nikita Khrushchev—and attend a basketball game in Los Angeles. The Iowa visit was designed to remind Americans that Xi, who visited Iowa 27 years ago, has a long-standing attachment to America, reinforced by the fact that his daughter is attending Harvard, and that Iowa’s farmers rely heavily on income from exporting their agricultural products.

Idleb Province, Syria

During a hearing on Thursday, Democratic senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, publicly doubted the Obama administration’s decision to consider transferring five senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo to Qatar.

On February 9, the Spanish supreme court unanimously ruled to disbar Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who famously indicted former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet using the legal doctrine of universal jurisdiction, for ordering illegal wiretaps.

Members of British intelligence are concerned about the possibility of Iran and al Qaeda teaming up in a plot against the West, perhaps in a joint attack against the 2012 Olympic Games in London.  Their concerns were first voiced in a piece by Sky News on Wednesday and then in other follow-up reports in the British press.