Foreign Policy
Bye bye Bolton
In my search for silver linings following the 2016 election disaster, I observed that Trump during the campaign had made a case for a more restrained, less interventionist foreign policy. He hasn’t consistently followed through, but his basic instinct is ...
Read MoreShort Takes
Two reading recommendations for those who are interested: More on the spectre of ’72—New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore has done a fine piece that covers much of what I wrote in my own post on the subject, but a lot ...
Read MoreThat Bipartisan Consensus: An Added Note
I can’t help it: when a widely read pundit writes a column saying pretty much the same as what I have just said, I must point it out. Here is Peter Beinart, who might well have read my post of ...
Read MoreCracks in the Consensus on Israel?
A front-page two-column lead in the New York Times yesterday announced “Trump and Netanyahu put Bipartisan Support [for Israel] at Risk.” Donald Trump has demanded, and Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed (with only a very partial takeback), to bar two American congresswomen ...
Read MoreWar with Iran?
One of Donald Trump’s very few merits (maybe his only merit?) is an instinctive aversion to major US military intervention abroad. That aversion of course didn’t prevent him from appointing the country’s premier warmonger as his national security adviser, nor ...
Read MoreThe Israeli Elections and 2020
As a practical matter, there was little chance that the Israeli election outcome would have any impact on the prospects for a peace settlement in Israel/Palestine. Benjamin Netanyahu will be returned to office after a campaign in which he proclaimed ...
Read MoreOmar Tweets Again
Since I defended Ilhan Omar in my last post, I feel obliged to comment on her latest twitter trouble. Responding indirectly to an attack on her by Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, the Congresswoman shot off a tweet suggesting that Congressional ...
Read MoreIsrael, the Left and Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens is one of the NY Times’s house conservatives. Unlike his colleagues David Brooks and Ross Douthat, he seldom manifests any interesting departures from right-wing orthodoxy, though, to his credit, he is an anti-Trumper. Like many ideologues of both ...
Read MoreLeaving Syria
The United States has never had any good options in confronting the grim realities of the Syrian civil war. Trump’s decision to get out may or may not be a good one. It may not have been made for the ...
Read MoreMore on the GHW Bush Legacy
I only touched on one strikingly negative aspect of the GHW Bush legacy in my last post, but this is a pretty good compendium of Bush’s offenses that I mostly agree with. The tone is relentlessly harsh and the numbers cited ...
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