How This Ends: A Blueprint for De-Escalation in Syria
Deputy Director of Studies and Leon E. Panetta Fellow Dr. Dafna H. Rand and Research Associate Nicholas Heras argue for the importance of focusing on a political framework for de-escalating the civil conflict in Syria.
-- Dafna Rand, Nicholas Heras. November 6, 2014.

Former US defence secretary Robert Gates was first to land a punch. Then former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton weighed in with a memoir that distanced herself from her president's foreign policy.

And on Tuesday, former CIA chief and defence secretary Leon Panetta released a book about his years in the administration in which he criticises President Barack Obama as a vacillating leader who "avoids the battle".

All presidents have had in-house critics. But rarely has a president faced the degree of public criticism from former senior cabinet members that Obama has this year. The critiques are particularly notable because they have appeared while Obama is still in office. Panetta's Worthy Fights has appeared as US mid-term elections approach, when criticism of Obama could boost his Republican opposition.

The chorus of cabinet members' complaints "is really like no other case in the modern era", said Aaron David Miller, who worked as a diplomat for presidents of both parties. Fairly or not, they are "reinforcing the image of a president who has pushed risk aversion in foreign policy too far".The former-officials-turned-authors aren't members of Obama's personal inner circle, like Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, who hasn't written a book.But all three were pillars of Obama's first-term team and central in shaping his national security strategy.

WASHINGTON -- Two Canadian banks tightly connected to promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the United States either fully or partially paid for eight speeches made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the period not long before she announced her campaign for president. Those speeches put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate's pocket.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and TD Bank were both primary sponsors of paid Clinton speeches in 2014 and early 2015, although only the former appears on the financial disclosure form she filed May 15. According to that document, CIBC paid Clinton $150,000 for a speech she gave in Whistler, British Columbia, on Jan. 22, 2015.

Clinton reported that another five speeches she gave across Canada were paid for by tinePublic Inc., a promotional company known for hosting speeches by world leaders and celebrities. Another speech was reported as paid for by the think tank Canada 2020, while yet another speech was reportedly funded by the Vancouver Board of Trade. But a review of invitations, press releases and media reports for those seven other speeches reveals that they, too, were either sponsored by or directly involved the two banks.

Both banks have financial ties to TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, and have advocated for a massive increase in pipeline capacity, including construction of Keystone. Further, Gordon Giffin, a CIBC board member and onetime U.S. ambassador to Canada, is a former lobbyist for TransCanada and was a contributions bundler for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.