The Foreign Service Journal, June 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2014 15 AFSA Scholarship AFSA.org/Scholar Clements Worldwide clements.com Diplomatic Automobile diplosales.com Embassy Risk Management embassyrisk.com The Hirshorn Company hirshorn.com/USFS McGrath Real Estate Services homesdatabase.com/jimmc- grath PROMAX Management Inc. promaxrealtors.com St Martin’s Press us.macmillan.com/ameri- canstatecraft/jrobertmoskin Stanford Online High School ohs.stanford.edu Trinity Christian School tcsfairfax.org WJD Management wjdpm.com This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group deter- mined to keep these girls from getting an education—grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls. —First Lady Michelle Obama on the kidnapping of Nigerian girls, delivering the president’s weekly radio address on May 10. Contemporary Quote seek relocation of MEK members to third countries. We are working closely w/U.N. and U.S. on this resolution.” The discussion then turned to the recent arrests of prominent opposition figures by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which Amb. Faily dismissed by asserting that the “judiciary in Iraq is inde- pendent of executive. We are still working to strengthen the professionalism of our judiciary.” Asked whether Iraq believes that Syrian President Bashir al-Assad “must go,” the ambassador would only say: “We believe in a democratic resolution to conflict. A primary objective of Iraqi people is to stop bloodshed.” He added: “Serious dialogue must take place btwn Syrian stakeholders. Otherwise war of attrition btwn themwill never lead to peace.” To read the full conversation, follow@ FailyLukman on Twitter, or search for the hashtag #AskIraq. —Bret Matera, Editorial Intern Happy Birthday, Ben! I n the June 2013 edition of Talking Points ( “Diplomacy Goes to the Dogs“ ), we spotlighted Australian artist Bennett Mill- er’s “Dachshund U.N.” show, which posed 36 adorable dachshunds as United Nations Human Rights Commission delegates. Salon.com reviewer Allison Meier noted that the show had plenty of barking and biting, and sometimes the “del- egates” even lunged at each other. Here in Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to keep barking from degenerating into biting by having a single pooch on stage: Ben, a yellow Labrador retriever. Sec. Kerry noted that State’s new top dog was named for Benjamin Franklin, America’s first diplomat, and is affectionately known as “Diplomutt.” As Colby Itkowitz reports in the April 24 Washington Post , Kerry’s best friend celebrated his first birthday in style on April 22. Sec. Kerry set up a Twitter account for the pup (@DiploMutt), and promptly tweeted him a “happy birthday” message. No sooner had the tweet gone live than Ben had 615 followers; by May 15, he had 1,516. Two days later, Ben’s dad brought him to a “Take Your Child to Work” event at the State Department. The pup behaved himself for most of Kerry’s brief remarks, though he did jump on the female sign language interpreter. (Bad dog!) The official State Department tran- script of the April 24 event includes the following ad-lib from the Secretary: “Whoops. Sit, sit, sit, sit. He’s learning. He’s 1 year old yesterday, two days ago. Whoops. (Laughter.) Sit. He’s learning, slowly. He’s getting there.” Itkowitz concludes her report by ask- ing, “Should Kerry consider trying some of those obedience techniques on [Rus- sian President Vladimir] Putin?” n —Steven Alan Honley, Contributing Editor