Foreign Policy
The 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 ...
Read More“…and maybe he didn’t.”
Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to do nothing—literally, nothing—in reaction to the near certainty that Saudi Prince MBS ordered the brutal murder of the moderate dissident journalist Khashoggi. Trump’s typically dishonest, weasel-like whitewash of Jared’s soul ...
Read MoreJohn McCain
The encomia are flowing, and much of the praise is well-deserved. John McCain was an honorable man of principle. He was a gentleman who embraced civility. He thus distinguished himself from the great majority of his current congressional Republican colleagues, ...
Read MoreDonald and the Russia Problem
Donald Trump has repeatedly resisted the irresistible conclusion that Vladimir Putin did what he could to put Trump in the White House. Now, the summit meeting in Helsinki has forced him to be explicit: to say that he believes Putin, ...
Read MoreWillful Ideology or Defective Personality?
Donald Trump’s apparent willingness to bust up NATO and the European Union, together with his penchant for starting trade wars and his repeatedly expressed affinity with autocratic strongmen, have led a lot of commentators to bemoan the threat he poses ...
Read MoreThe president sticks it to the allies, again
In evident anticipation of the upcoming NATO summit, Donald Trump has written strongly worded letters to many of our NATO allies complaining that they don’t spend enough on defense. This is an old complaint by US presidents, of course, but ...
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