It has now been a year since the historic Iranian presidential election and its volcanic aftermath. Some in Iran, proud of the highest turnout (85%) in Iranian election history, consider the day (June 12) a time for glory, while others, in the defeated Reformist camp, consider it a memorial day for those who lost their lives in the violence. Like so many other issues in Persian politics, the 2009 election has also sparked much discussion and debate.

Now it is India’s turn to complain that Obama is too much the Pacific president and not enough the Indian Ocean president. Whereas the Indian government is not officially complaining, what might be called the Indian foreign policy establishment of business leaders, strategic thinkers, journalists and former diplomats are.

So like a debtor who decides that it's easier to ask for a raise than chop up his credit cards, Team Obama decided to focus on boosting American power, not reducing American obligations. The Bush Administration, they reasoned, had leveraged only military power. Obama would deploy "soft power" too, the power to attract rather than coerce.

U.S. and Pakistani defense officials wrapped up a four-day session in Pakistan today aimed at expanding the two countries’ defense relationship to address current and future threats. The Pakistan-U.S. Strategic Dialogue Defense Working Group, known as the Exchange on Defense Planning, met at Pakistan’s Joint Staff Headquarters in Rawalpindi as part of the strategic dialogue process, embassy officials in Islamabad reported.

In a meeting with reporters, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale said that it was critically important in today’s complex world for the US and Arab people to learn more about each other and debate on issues.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill risked turning into a trans-Atlantic diplomatic rift Thursday after U.S. threats to have BP fork out billions more for the disaster caused a precipitous slide in the blue-chip's stock, hurting retirement savings for millions of Britons.

It is clear that both India and the US need each other more than anytime in the past. It is clear that US needs India as a partner in the increasingly Post-American World and India would be quite happy to accept a world dominated by American hegemony rather than the one dominated by China.

Reaching out to the two countries that voted against new sanctions on Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that she thought Brazil and Turkey would continue to play an important role in diplomatic efforts with the Iranian government.