Engaged in high-stakes political drama, Washington’s playmakers can forget that the world watches their every move—with our allies looking for leadership and growing concerned that we may no longer have the wherewithal to provide it, and our adversaries savoring our domestic turmoil. Nothing better makes the point than our standoff over the debt limit, which …
Continue reading “Debt Limit Fiasco Aids U.S. Adversaries Around the Globe”
“Never interfere with an enemy in the process of destroying himself,” Napoleon once said. That’s a lesson Jerusalem needs to learn quickly, and Washington needs to reinforce, as Israel’s regional challenges escalate while the Jewish state is splintering over an ill-timed debate on judicial reform. Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has paused his push for a judicial overhaul that critics …
“The global struggle for democracy approached a possible turning point in 2022,” Freedom House writes in its latest annual report on political rights and civil liberties around the world. “There were signs … that the world’s long freedom recession may be bottoming out, which would set the stage for a future recovery.” Freedom shrunk for the 17th straight …
Continue reading “Ukraine remains at heart of freedom’s future”
“The Fuhrer beams,” Joseph Goebbels said of Hitler after Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in the spring of 1936 and the West did nothing. “England remains passive. France won’t act alone. Italy is disappointed and America uninterested.” As it turns out, Robert Kagan explains in “The Ghost at the Feast,” his new book about America’s global role between 1900 and …
President Biden’s surprise trip to Kyiv was gutsy, and he deserves credit for leading the West in an impressive military, diplomatic, and economic effort to isolate Moscow and help Ukraine rebuff Russia’s attempted conquest. One year into the war, however, Biden’s administration must discard its strategic ambiguity about U.S. war aims and make clear that, like Kyiv, …
Continue reading “High Time for the US to support Ukraine’s victory – and Russia’s defeat”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government — and its suspected efforts to fundamentally transform the nature of Israel’s democratic system — could significantly weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship over time. That relationship, dating back to Israel’s founding during the Truman years, is rooted in shared values and shared interests. Israel remains the Middle East’s lone democracy, and the United …
Continue reading “New Israeli government could transform U.S.-Israeli relationship”
Why won’t Iran cut a deal? Its regime has taken an uncompromising line in renewed talks over its nuclear program. Although that has left the United States and its allies bewildered and frustrated, the regime has solid reasons for doing so. After all, it is currently managing to weather the tough U.S. and global economic …
Continue reading “Iran has good reasons to hang tough in nuke talks”