“First as tragedy, second as farce.” It’s Karl Marx’s line about history repeating itself but, per the Jonathan Pollard trial balloon of recent days, the line could just as easily apply to America’s foreign policy. We need not debate the merits of Pollard’s release, for which supporters and detractors each can mount a compelling case, …
Continue reading “U.S. Can’t Bribe Israelis, Palestinians To Make Peace”
The U.S. focus on Ukraine has shifted attention away from this week’s remarkable set of exchanges, direct and indirect, between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that speaks additional volumes about Obama’s take on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. That Obama has an unbalanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hardly a …
Continue reading “Barack Obama’s Got A Rosy Take On Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas”
The secret text of recent days that reportedly describes how Iran will implement its six-month nuclear deal raises justifiable fears that, in fleshing out the details, Washington opened the door to more Iranian progress. That neither the United States nor the European Union will release the paper seems ominous, for they’d do so if they …
Continue reading “Critics justifiably fear latest Western deal-making with Iran”
In the messy aftermaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, critics of U.S. interventionism abroad have exerted great influence over the direction of U.S. foreign policy, putting interventionists on the defensive. The anti-interventionist ascendancy has clearly influenced U.S. policymaking toward Iran (where President Obama seems determined, at all costs, to avoid military action in response to Tehran’s …
Continue reading “Non-intervention facilitated a victory for tyrants and terrorists in Syria”
With all eyes in Washington focused on the government shutdown and possible default, policymakers and pundits may have missed what’s potentially the most consequential story of late – a Washington Post piece that catalogues the growing backlash against Tea Party Republicans in districts across the country. In West Michigan, business leaders are recruiting a primary …
I suspect that I’m like many of you. I want to believe Israeli-Palestinian peace is coming, that the two sides will soon agree to borders, Palestinian terrorists will stop launching rockets from Gaza, and ultra-right Israelis will abandon dreams of absorbing the West Bank into a “Greater Israel.” In that spirit, I want to share …
Continue reading “John Kerry’s Palestinian Investment Plan Sidesteps Central Truisms”
President Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy, which he unveiled last week in a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, is less off-base than incomplete, reflecting his effort to limit the scope of the problem and the requirements of the response in ways that will prove inadequate to the challenge. In nearly 7,000 words, Obama expressed ambivalence …