The attempt to close the prison has entailed tense negotiations with foreign officials, heated confrontations during meetings in the White House Situation Room, and, especially, a long-running fight with the Pentagon, which outplayed Obama for years.
But there could be an upside to a new national security committee of high-level officials if it can rein in other Chinese officials eager for confrontation with neighbors like Japan, or if it can help coordinate a more effective response to climate change.
Their punishments were occasional smear campaigns by the official media, unpleasant confrontations with the police, or, at most, a few days in jail.
Mr. Abdullah has been under intense pressure from Western officials to avoid confrontation and end a two-month dispute over the election results.
Through the day and into the evening, Goldman Sachs officials met with confrontation and blunt questioning as senators from both parties challenged them over their aggressive marketing of mortgage investments at a time when the housing market was already starting to falter.
During one confrontation, an official reminded him that CICIG was not, technically, a U.N. body.
"The guys inside are holding their ground, but they don't want to continue the confrontation," the official said.
Even as the reports began to percolate of North Korea's declaration, two representatives of the country's permanent mission to the United Nations were meeting with an American official to discuss the confrontation with Washington over the North's nuclear program.
According to a preliminary police account, which was included in Brown's official autopsy report, the confrontation began when Wilson, on patrol, spotted Brown and a friend, Dorian Johnson, walking in the street.
Their main fear is not that senior Kurdish officials will seek a confrontation with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.
