The Cable

The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Quote of the Day: Jim DeMint on Syria

On this blog, we occasionally give Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) some attention when he veers into the realm of foreign policy — such as when he repeatedly called Russia the Soviet Union or when he declared that the New START debate shouldn’t brush up against Christmas vacation. But this week, when we asked DeMint for ...

On this blog, we occasionally give Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) some attention when he veers into the realm of foreign policy — such as when he repeatedly called Russia the Soviet Union or when he declared that the New START debate shouldn’t brush up against Christmas vacation.

But this week, when we asked DeMint for his views on what American should do in response to rising unrest and increasing government violence in Syria, he gave a sharp, salient, one-line response.

"There’s a difference between what we should do in Syria and what we can do," DeMint told The Cable.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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