May 7, 2024

Entering Rafah on Yom HaShoah

Israel’s opening attack on Rafah in Gaza coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).  Israel’s plans and the Biden administration’s response should be understood in light of history and its lesson...

December 28, 2023

Operation Prosperity Guardian

Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, coordinating commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, has announced that Iran will close the Mediterranean Sea in retaliation for “U.S. war crimes” in Gaza. "They shall soon await th...

August 26, 2023

Niger and El Salvador: More in Common Than One Might Think

What is the point of a national government? Can a government serve its people if it is not democratically elected? The answer to the second depends on the answer to the first. Consider El Salvador. The president, Nayib Bukele, was democ...

June 10, 2023

WHO is running the club

A club that lets everybody in isn’t a club. The UN lost any claim to being an international forum for democracy when the U.S. agreed to admit Stalin’s Soviet Union. The tossing of Taiwan for communist China was the death knell. Today, ...

February 2, 2023

Predicting and preparing for war

The General wasn't advocating war, nor was he predicting war. Gen. Michael A. Minihan, USAF sent a memo to his troops, wanting them to speed up their preparations for potential combat with China.  Although U.S. intelligence considers...

January 27, 2023

Where The U.S. and Israel Make Common Cause

The United States and Israel have had a close political and security relationship for decades, because -- in the main -- they see both democratic norms and the requirement for security as mutually reinforcing. Iran’s willingness to kill its own...

December 2, 2022

How Long Do They Get to be Wrong?

Old-line, Oslo-era “peace processers” Daniel Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller have a prescription for U.S. relations with Israel for 2023. It is a large, threatening hammer, wielded by two people who have a lot of experience failing in Midd...

October 14, 2022

Biden Deflects to Saudi Arabia

Deflection. That’s when someone tries to turn aside responsibility and shift it to someone/something else. Today’s example is the rampage by the White House and Democrats against Saudi Arabia, accusing it of cutting oil production because...

September 21, 2022

What the US and Iran agree on

As the Iranian government delegation arrives in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session — First Class, of course — there was some pressure on the State Department to deny their visas.  But in a very State Department...

June 26, 2022

Upping the Ante in Ukraine

Lithuania has upped the ante against Russia in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, closing rail lines to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad -- a direct poke at the Russian bear. The bear poked back, warning that Lithuania would face a "serious n...

April 27, 2022

Between the Scylla of the PA and the Charybdis of Hamas

Some months ago, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Ganz invited Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas to his home for dinner. Despite the fact that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Police work with Abbas’s police force o...

March 24, 2022

Regional Architecture and the Middle East

Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett went to Sharm el-Sheikh to meet Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ). In an open sign of displeasure with the Biden administration, they...

January 26, 2022

The US will never stop violence in the Middle East until it gets tough on Iran

The Houthi rebels of Yemen are a terrorist group.  If it wasn't clear enough from the missile attacks targeting civilians in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), there is official international confirmation.   H...

January 13, 2022

'If/Then' is no Policy for Dealing with Russia

Russia has embarked upon a series of threatening activities ostensibly directed at Ukraine, but that in fact could culminate in enormous and disastrous military and political damage to NATO. Those same threatening activities might also be used by Rus...

December 29, 2021

Are Russia and Israel cooperating under the radar in Syria?

While staying out of the horrific Syrian Civil War (except humanitarian aid at the border), Israel has long had three red lines for what happens in its northern neighbor: No Iranian or Hezb'allah bases near the Israeli border; revised to no...

December 3, 2021

Tehran Seeks a 'Better Deal'

“Iran is prepared to reach a 'good agreement' quickly, with the goal of protecting the Iranian people’s rights and interests,” the Iranian foreign minister announced as Ali Bagheri Kani, the country’s chief negotiator,...

November 10, 2021

People Don't Want to be Cold

The climate summit was expensive, energy-burning theater. One hundred eighteen private jets flew into the airport, President Joe Biden's motorcade had 24 vehicles, including SUVs and vans, and Greta Thunberg was angry. Demonstrators denounced Isr...

October 12, 2021

The foreign minister’s visit

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is arriving in Washington for talks with a wide range of American political figures and establishments. But most important is likely to be his peer-to-peer meetings with counterpart Secretary of State Antony...

September 2, 2021

Three Takeaways from Afghanistan for Us at Home

First, remember our troops, living and dead, who served the United States in Afghanistan since 2001.  They are owed our gratitude for their steadfast presence in a difficult country and our help as they and their families, and the families ...

July 23, 2021

Why are we bailing out the terrorism-supporting Palestinians?

Deputy assistant secretary of state Hady Amr, Biden administration envoy to Israel and the Palestinians, went on a mission to help Palestinians.  He asked Israel to take steps to alleviate "Palestinian suffering" and help the Pale...

May 20, 2021

Withholding Weapons from Israel Makes the US Weak

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of like-minded colleagues want to sink the proposed $735-million sale of a Boeing-built arms guidance kit to Israel.  The Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) kit converts unguided or "dumb" bo...

April 24, 2021

Iran's Goals

What if Iran doesn't actually plan to use a nuclear weapon? What if Iran wants, as various of its officials have said over the years, to prevent being toppled the way Saddam Hussein was, or Moammar Gaddafi or Hosni Mubarak?  To preve...

April 3, 2021

Talking Won’t Solve the Iran Problem

The Biden administration has made clear its intention to talk with Iran. Since every negotiation has to have an endgame, consider both parties to the proposed conversation and what they intend to get. Before the election, Biden told a journalist...

January 22, 2021

The Problem Isn’t in Palestinian Numbers

Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted out a number this week -- ...

May 27, 2020

Open Skies: The Cassette Deck of Treaties

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed to the Kremlin that the U.S. and the USSR each be permitted to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the other’s territory and collect data on each other’s military forces and activities to enha...

May 7, 2020

Is Iran Going Home?

If you are Iran, it seems, 2020 is not your year.   Aside from the devastation of the Wuhan virus, Iraq closed its 1,000-mile southern border with Iran for "security reasons" after months of Iraqi protests against Iranian inter...

April 17, 2020

Remember Federalism? COVID-19 Takes us Back

States, jealous of their power and prerogatives when it suits, have been furious over what some governors call federal inaction on COVID-19, deliberate or not. But equally, each state has a department of public health, a director of that departm...

March 30, 2020

Planning for 'Peace' in Afghanistan

In the face of a standoff between Ashraf Ghani and Abdurrashid Dostum -- each of whom is determined to be considered the duly elected president of Afghanistan, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Kabul to provide one last push toward a single gove...

March 28, 2020

Sanctions in a time of Pandemic

The Islamic Republic of Iran is fighting the Wuhan virus with its usual obfuscation, lies, denials, and accusations. Calling the virus a concerted effort by the U.S. and Israel to infect Iran, the government has demanded an end to Western sanctions ...

January 25, 2020

Righteous Anger vs. Politics as Usual

There is anger and then there is righteous anger. Peter Finch yelling out the window, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” From Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, where parts of a whole are coming undone, to Hong K...

October 13, 2019

Trump's Foreign Policy: Less Military, More Money

One way to understand Trump administration foreign policy is to understand that it is more comfortable with the currency of currency than the currency of American soldiers abroad.  That isn't always the best approach, since many of Amer...

September 1, 2019

The Shiite Crescent and Regional Disaster

For decades, the concept of a “Shiite Crescent” anchored by the radical Shiite supremacists in Iran and passing through Iraq, Syria, and Hezb'allah to the Mediterranean Sea has been understood. It would provide Iran not only with clos...

July 19, 2019

Patiently Squeezing Iran

See also: Don’t underestimate Iran’s geopolitical resources Iran is responsible for current crises, and must be treated accordingly What appears to be an oil tanker war brewing in the Red Sea and beyond, including the downin...

May 16, 2019

Orbán at the White House

Despite the fact that the Trump administration has spent two years communicating its concerns with Hungary regarding academic freedom, anti-Semitism, and other illiberal positions of the Hungarian government, the visit of Prime Minister Viktor Orb...

March 30, 2019

The Gaza Rebellion as the Arab Spring

For the past year, Hamas has led Palestinians to demonstrate and riot on Fridays along the Gaza-Israel fence. The civilians, of which there are many, provide cover for rocket and incendiary device-wielding terrorists and those who would cross the fen...

February 17, 2019

A Palestinian Terrorist Too Brutal for Fatah

The Palestinian Authority (PA) finally found a terrorist act committed by a Palestinian against an Israeli from which it wishes to disassociate. The horrific rape and knife murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher prompted Qadura Fares, head of the PA-aff...

January 24, 2019

Finally Signs of Hope for Venezuela?

Is it too soon to cheer for the Venezuelan people, who have taken their future into their own hands – at grave risk?  Is it too soon to cheer the Trump administration for offering the interim government of Venezuelan opposition leader...

January 13, 2019

Israel's Sovereignty on the Golan Heights: Why Now?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a public declaration of Israel's interest in having the United States recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz have introduced legislation urging ...

December 21, 2018

Trump Declares Victory in Syria Too Soon

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Sen. George Aiken is reported to have said, "Let's just declare victory and get out."  In October, President Donald Trump did "declare victory" over ISIS.  "I want to g...

November 28, 2018

The Russians and the Kerch Bridge: What Would Reagan Do?

Every story has a starting point. Don't start with the Russian capture this week of two (or three) Ukrainian ships and the injury to three (or six) Ukrainian sailors.  The Russian habit is to do as it likes with smaller countries and th...

September 13, 2018

Iran's Shaky Foundations

Current U.S. 5th Fleet exercises designed to ensure freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea are a welcome sight. The Islamic Republic of Iran has spent years extending its claims across the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and the Red ...

August 29, 2018

Taking an Axe to 'Peace Processing'

The Trump administration has restored the United States to the position of honest broker – emphasis on "honest" – and taken a hatchet to a series of fantasies underlying the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian "peace process....

July 11, 2018

Wrecking NATO

The Washington Post headline blared, "Trump is bent on wrecking NATO. Prepare for catastrophe."  The Post fears that President Trump's diplomacy will benefit Vladimir Putin to the detriment of American and European interests....

May 25, 2018

Making the Iranians Mad

There is much to be learned from the endgame between the Reagan administration and the final leaders of the Soviet empire that can be applied to the current situation with Iran. When Ronald Reagan proposed the "Zero-Zero Option" for n...

March 23, 2018

Never Again?

"Never Again" was a rallying cry for Jews after the Holocaust.  Never again would Jews be defenseless.  Never again would Jews be force-marched, starved, and gassed without a response.  Never again would Jews w...

January 31, 2018

No Breaks for Israel

Israel’s red lines in Syria’s civil war have included returning fire against any entity that fires into Israel (whether Syrian, rebel, Hizb’allah, or Iranian); not permitting Iran or Hizb’allah or any of their Shiite proxies i...

December 7, 2017

A Down Payment for Peace

It’s starting to sound like a plan. Since the beginning of the Oslo “peace process,” it has been assumed that Israel has more to give than the Palestinians. After all, the story went, Israel is wealthy, recognized, democratic, an...

November 15, 2017

The Middle East's Problems Are Really Our Problems

It's our problem, actually, and we've made it theirs. It is the West that simultaneously wants "the Arab Spring" and "stability."  Democracy and strong government control.  Honest government and stable kleptoc...

October 15, 2017

Palestinian Reconciliation: To What End?

After weeks of Egyptian-sponsored pre-talks, and a very short "cabinet meeting" in Gaza, "formal reconciliation talks" are now being held between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (P.A. or Fatah) in Cairo under the direct auspic...

October 10, 2017

How Naked Is the Iranian Emperor?

The clock appears to be ticking on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); more than some may think, less than others may hope. Whatever President Donald Trump decides to do with the unsigned, unratified, unagreed-upon text of the untreaty, i...

August 25, 2017

Egypt, America's Ally in the Larger War

In his televised address on the future of American operations in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump took a sharp turn from his predecessors. I share [the American people's] frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, en...

August 15, 2017

Where is Israel?

As the president sends his envoys back to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the usual flood of voices has offered advice – do this, do that, say this, say that.  Whatever.   Let's try something different. When people t...

August 10, 2017

Lebanon Is an Outpost of Iran

The United States persists in treating Lebanon as if it were a country.  Congress provides U.S. military assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and trains the LAF's officers.  And now we're fighting alongside the LAF, apparen...

July 27, 2017

It's about Sovereignty

The disgusting terror murders of two Israeli policemen (one shot in the back) on the Temple Mount, coupled with the indescribable terror murders of three Israelis (grandfather, father, and aunt) celebrating the birth of a baby at their Sabbath dinner...

July 19, 2017

Another lopsided trade: Israel compromises, Palestinians keep everything

On Friday, two Israeli policemen were murdered on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  The same day, Seth Siegel wrote in The New York Times, "A Good Story about Israel and the Palestinians," detailing how Israeli and Palestinians sat on a ...

June 23, 2017

Does Trump Get the Israel-Arab Problem?

Following high-level meetings with foreign leaders, the U.S. State Department issues a "readout," an official statement to cover and characterize the event.  This week, Jared Kushner, assistant to the president, and Jason Greenblatt, s...

June 17, 2017

Straight talk and Palestinian 'intent'

President Donald Trump's straight talk about veneration of violence in Palestinian society has had important consequences.  It was the catalyst for Norway and Denmark to disassociate from the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) habit of naming publ...

June 9, 2017

How Trump Got Liberals to Embrace Federalism

If you're looking for American ingenuity and technological prowess to help resolve the climate issues that face the world, the Paris Climate Pact is not for you.  The pact is a voluntary agreement among countries including the world's wo...

June 1, 2017

The Accumulation of Vibrations

In the movie, the Allied commandos sneak through Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia to the bridge they were assigned to blow up. After the requisite setbacks, our heroes enter the internal machinery of a dam upstream of the bridge and detonate their explo...

May 24, 2017

Saffie Rose Russos, British terror victim, and the president

President Donald Trump, speaking in Riyadh, named Iran as a source of terrorism and destruction in the Middle East.  At the same time, he politely but firmly demanded that the Sunni Arab establishment take responsibility for its role in the spre...

May 18, 2017

The President Goes to Israel

It is worth getting out of the weeds of Washington on occasion and looking at the big picture. This is one of those occasions. President Trump is going to Israel, visiting the one stable, prosperous, multiethnic, multicultural, democratic ally the...

April 10, 2017

Punishment as Foreign Policy

The goal of American foreign policy should be to make our friends more secure and our adversaries less secure. The balance of countries then have to decide how they want to position themselves. A successful policy will have tactical goals that fit in...

March 19, 2017

The Opposite of a Two-State Solution Is Not One State

The so-called “two-state solution,” to subdivide the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea between independent Israel and independent Palestine, fails the tests of logic and history. And it ignores the Kingdom of Jordan ...

February 15, 2017

Making Policy in the New Administration

The Trump White House continues to receive advice – solicited and unsolicited, in letters to the editor, op-eds, essays, and policy papers – as to what its foreign policy priorities should be.  It is tempting to presume that problems...

December 27, 2016

UN Resolution 242: The Linchpin of Israel’s Security

The 1948 restoration of Jewish sovereignty to parts of the historic Jewish homeland, under the auspices of the United Nations, was not accepted by Israel’s Arab neighbors who launched the first of several wars against it. The 1948-49 war result...

November 2, 2016

Lebanon's Government and Iran's Victory

As a coalition of disparate forces – including the Iraqi military, Iranian-supported Iraqi Shiite militias, Kurdish forces, Turks, and Iranian militias – closes in on Mosul, Iraq, ready to oust ISIS from the capital of its self-proclaimed...

August 27, 2016

Biden speaks in Turkey. Ouch.

The U.S. is in a tight spot, mostly of its own making, as regards relations with post-coup attempt Turkey.  And Vice President Joe Biden just made it tighter, slandering Americans in the process. U.S. forces at Turkey’s Incirlik air bas...

August 20, 2016

What Outcome do we Seek in Syria?

Russian warplanes took off this week from Iran to hit targets in Syria. Russia has used Iranian bases for refueling and resupply in the past, but this is its first bombing mission from the Islamic Republic -- it is also the first foreign mi...

August 5, 2016

Iran: Follow the Money

Let's not waste time.  At the direction of President Obama, the United States of America gave $400 million to Iran – it was Iran's money, after all, Obama said.  In an unrelated move, Iran released four American hostages: a ne...

July 9, 2016

Why Not Zero?

The Obama administration has announced that it will not cut the U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan to 5,000 as planned, but will leave 8,400 soldiers to support the Afghan government in its fight against the Taliban.  President Obama said, ...

June 23, 2016

Funding Israel’s Missile Defense -- and America’s

Congress has passed a $576 billion Defense Appropriations bill for 2016 with a wide and bipartisan majority: 282-138, according to Defense News. The Obama administration takes issue with various parts of the bill, including presenting a six...

May 13, 2016

Israel as a Security Asset – for Everyone

The week of Israel’s 68th anniversary, NATO invited Israel – and three other countries – to “establish diplomatic missions to NATO headquarters.” This is not NATO membership, something to which Israel does not aspire, bu...

May 3, 2016

Reversing Israel on the Golan Heights

Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi, who held the April UN Security Council presidency, announced last week that the status of the Golan Heights “remains unchanged.” That is, of course, true -- like the old "Saturday Night Live" runnin...

March 17, 2016

Russia Leaves Syria: Not Every War is a Quagmire

The American public tends to see military action as binary: all in or not in at all. Mostly we’re not in -- as befits a country that is not aggressive or acquisitive. But if we’re in it, win it. In this age of transnational enemies and va...

March 3, 2016

French Diplomacy on 'Palestine' Will Run Aground

France is proposing to lead the Middle East Quartet on a new foray into Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.  This is understandable as a part of French politics.  The Palestinians, however, are setting up to be at least as difficult a client for...

January 24, 2016

Iran Trade: The Deal on Balance

There is a pattern emerging on the Iran deal: we got and they got. That’s how it’s supposed to work -- something for something -- right? Okay. We got: Iranian ballistic missile tests in violation of UN resolutions; Missiles fir...

January 9, 2016

The Next Stage of the War

The Obama administration appears surprised by the sudden eruption of Saudi-Iranian hostility after the Saudi government executed Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the Iranians responded by organizing/sponsoring/approving an attack on the Saudi Em...

December 23, 2015

It's not about 'Muslims', it's about Terror

The president says, “Muslims are our neighbors,” which, in fact, they are. Newspapers, including the influential Washington Post, have run stories extoling the virtues of Muslim refugees, Muslim soldiers, and Muslims as just-about-ev...

December 2, 2015

'Tactical Patience,' 'Zero Casualties' and Still no Goal

The peak of lunacy in the American fight against ISIS may have been reached. Remember that in October 2013, with ISIS bearing down on a Yazidi city in Syria, Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby told reporters U.S. air power wouldn't save K...

November 17, 2015

<em>Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite</em>

Secretary of State Kerry said of Friday’s terror attack in Paris, “These are heinous, evil, vile acts. Those of us who can must do everything in our power to fight back against what can only be considered an assault on our common humanity...

November 4, 2015

Could the destroyed Russian plane be jihadi payback?

It could have been a coincidence.  A Russian airbus with 224 people – mainly tourists – flying from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia could simply have come apart in midair, killing all aboard.  It would have been...

October 9, 2015

What Goes Around, Goes Around

In his prescient book Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan explains the vicious Balkan wars of the early 20th Century as an attempt by various groups to claim what territory rightfully belonged to them. But Hungarians, Bulgarians, Serbs, and others each defi...

September 30, 2015

Hitler or Stalin? The Case for Choosing

"Who was worse: Hitler or Stalin?"  It isn't a parlor game, but rather the historical equivalent of "ISIS or Iran (or proxy Syria)?"  You can play it either way, but "a plague on both their houses" didn...

July 9, 2015

Pristine War and Zero Casualties

The president -- Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces -- does not have to be a military man. Or maybe should not be a military man; a civilian perspective on issues of war is essential. But that being so, the civilian CinC should be wary of in...

June 30, 2015

Congress Knows Everything the Administration Knows

Here comes the Iran nuclear deal deadline and, to heighten tension, Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Zarif has run home to check a few things. The media is flooded with articles about the presumed outline of the deal, the increasing warmth between A...

June 16, 2015

A Middle East 'Complete Strategy'? To What End?

“Strategy” is the summer watchword in Washington -- strategy for handling ISIS, strategy for Syria, strategy for Middle East peace. The President says, “We don’t have, yet, a complete strategy” for ISIS, but presumably o...

May 15, 2015

Christians in the Middle East: Sometimes it isn't About Israel

Friends of Israel tend to use their “Israel is the center of the universe” prism to refract events in the region. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The New York Times, Foreign Policy magazine, and others to the contrary, the docum...

May 9, 2015

Iran Has Red Lines -- Too Bad the U.S. Doesn't

The Senate has passed the Corker-Cardin bill to ensure Congressional oversight of any deal the president concludes with Iran. The vote was 98-1 for language that permits the agreement to become operative unless Congress votes against it. Sen. Tom Cot...

April 29, 2015

The U.S. is there 'when it matters,' right?

Last week, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power testified to Congress that Israel couldn’t rely on the United States to veto anti-Israel resolutions in the U.N. Security Council, but she tried to soften the blow by saying, “We have ...

April 21, 2015

40 Years from Saigon

Forty years ago, Saigon fell to communist North Vietnam. Images of terrified South Vietnamese clambering to the roof of the U.S. embassy, and Vietnamese helicopter pilots ferrying them to ships and then pushing the helicopters overboard to make room ...

February 27, 2015

NYPD had it Right a Long Time Ago

Pop quiz: How can the threat of radical jihadists be countered? President Obama: “Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves t...

February 23, 2015

The U.S.-Israel Divide on Iran

Portrayed mainly as a tiff between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, the U.S.-Israel divide over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program is much more serious and dates to the 1980s. It reflects the difference in each country’s...

January 30, 2015

The U.S. as 'Pindostan'

It is a mistake to belittle Vladimir Putin.  Dislike and distrust him, fine.  Believe he is a monomaniacal empire-builder determined to restore Russia’s former colonies and holdings, OK.  To snicker at his bare-chested antics, pa...

January 24, 2015

Iran Doesn't Need Nuclear Weapons

In his State of the Union address, President Obama forcefully announced he would not accept “a nuclear-armed Iran.” This reflects his view that the only objectionable element of Iran’s behavior would be acquisition and possible use ...

January 4, 2015

Back in Iraq: What Happened to AfPak?

The horrific attack on a school in Pakistan by Taliban gunmen that killed 132 people, mainly children, returned that unhappy country to the news headlines for a few days.  But only a few – it’s gone again. It wasn't supposed t...

December 21, 2014

Cuba and the 'State of Palestine'

They arrest you for having an opinion – any that isn't theirs.  They arrest you for demanding elections; the last thing they want is to know you want different leadership.  They arrest you for having a Facebook page that is out of...

October 17, 2014

Chemical Weapons Revelations in the Middle East

Two chemical weapons-related stories this week should be considered separate, not necessarily interchangeable, parts of a whole. The first was that ISIS had used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in Kobani, raising the question of where ISIS...

October 10, 2014

Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Kobani

Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby told reporters he understood that U.S. air power wouldn't save Kobani, but there is a “larger strategy” in place.  The primary goal of the campaign is not to save Syrian cities and towns, U.S. C...

September 23, 2014

'Every War Must End'

“Thirteen years ago this October, we started bombing Muslims in the Middle East. We're still bombing them. Does any sane person think that 13 years from now, we're not going to still be bombing them?” Democratic operative James Ca...

September 12, 2014

We Already Built an Iraqi Army Once, Now What?

Secretary of State Kerry is in the Middle East, looking for regional allies for President Obama’s proposal to deal with the threat of the Islamic State (IS). That is entirely appropriate -- IS poses a more immediate and dire threat to regional ...

August 15, 2014

The "Disengaged" President Punishes Israel

Google “president disengaged” and 1,290,000 entries pop up. Okay, fair enough. Google is not the best way to take the measure of President Obama’s active engagement in the workings of the world. So note that today is the funeral of ...

August 13, 2014

End the Arab-Israel War

In two sets of remarks, President Obama shared his concerns about what happens between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. He worries about the people of Gaza: Long term, there has to be a recognition that Gaza cannot sustain itself perm...

July 28, 2014

Why a Gaza Cease Fire Doesn't Help

The Israeli Cabinet unanimously rejected the terms of a Gaza ceasefire proposed by Hamas front men Qatar and Turkey. Secretary of State Kerry expressed surprise and chagrin at the vote. The Israelis expressed surprise and chagrin at Kerry’s sup...

July 10, 2014

How Does Israel End Up the Bad Guy?

It is a terrible irony that Israel, revolted first by the murder of three of its teenage citizens and then by the revenge attack on a Palestinian teen, is the object of riots, bombs, and demands. Following the discovery of the bodies of the t...

July 2, 2014

A Requiem for Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar, Naftali Fraenkel, and Mohammed Karaka

On June 30, the Embassy of Israel announced: “With great sadness we must announce the bodies of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali have been found near Hebron. Our thoughts are with their families.”     Their tragic end wasn’t inevitable, but almost so. H...

May 8, 2014

Hamas tells Israel, 'No Hope'

Sometimes it is braggadocio. Sometimes it is the last rhetorical shot before making a political change previously thought impossible.  But sometimes, just sometimes, it is truth as the teller sees it. Hamas released a video for Israel's 6...

April 30, 2014

Zero-Sum Suffering

For Palestinians, suffering -- and sympathy for suffering -- is a zero-sum game. Sympathy used up on the Holocaust means less for Palestinians in the territories. Even among Palestinian groups, while thousands suffer and die in Syria -- most heinousl...

April 12, 2014

How the U.S. Went Wrong and Why

It is tempting to simply list all the ways the Obama administration -- particularly Secretaries Kerry and Hagel -- has been wrong on foreign and defense policy. After all, Russia/Ukraine, Syria, Iran, China, and Israel/Palestinians are nothing to sne...

March 30, 2014

Where Did the Peace Process Go?

Check your newspaper, Twitter feed, or CNN.  You will find the Malaysian airplane, Ukraine, the mudslide in Washington State, and in Washington, D.C. the terrible story of a missing 8-year-old girl.  There is the occasional story about the ...

March 20, 2014

What's Happening to the Internet?

It sounds like something you don't want to know too much about.  When you type an address into your computer's browser, you go to that address. How your computer knows where to find the Google image of kittens and puppies isn't your ...

March 12, 2014

An 'Unfriendly Gesture'

In response to mounting unhappiness in the West with Russia's acquisition of Crimea and plans to split Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has struck again. The Russian Defense Ministry released a statement over the weekend saying, “The unfounded threa...

March 3, 2014

America Speaks... and Who Cares?

President Obama has long made clear his distaste for fighting wars -- his or anyone else's. He has followed through on his belief in diplomacy not necessarily moored to military power and on his priority issues within the military related to soci...

February 27, 2014

Waking Up to Defense Cuts

If you are surprised by this week's announcement of major manpower cuts to the U.S. Army, you haven't been paying attention.  For a long time. There are two components to understanding America's defense spending choices -- the pol...

January 28, 2014

Seeing What isn't There

Yesterday upon the stairI met a man who wasn't thereHe wasn't there again todayI wish, I wish he'd go away William Hughes Mearns could have been speaking for the American government's proclivity to see an Israeli-Palestinian peace that doesn't exist...

January 26, 2014

Be Angry with the Iranians, Mr. President, and Yourself

The Obama administration is angry that Senate proponents of additional sanctions against Iran (to be instituted if the interim accord expires without a final agreement) appear to be more skeptical of Iranian promises than the president and Secretary ...

January 16, 2014

Egypt: It's Not a Democracy, but It's Not Nothing, Either

Warning: The following isn't nice. The liberal moaning and wailing has begun.  The circumstances of the referendum on Egypt's new constitution, the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, and what appears to be the impending crackdown on Ham...

January 11, 2014

Destroying Syrian Chemicals at Sea

Are you ready for an experiment? The U.S. government is about to try something never before undertaken, utilizing equipment never before used under these circumstances. Are you ready for the first stab at neutralizing chemical weapons at sea, on a...

December 27, 2013

An 'Objects' Lesson from Syria

The 2,000-year-old Jobar Synagogue in Damascus is said to be the site where the prophet Elijah concealed himself from persecution and anointed his successor, Elisha. It was a UNESCO World Heritage Site until last March when someone appeared to have b...

December 18, 2013

Listening to the Palestinians

The biggest failure in the American diplomatic quest to midwife the State of Palestine has been a failure to listen to the Palestinians, who don't hide much. (One wag said that generally parties to a negotiation lie on the outside and tell the truth ...

December 6, 2013

Israel in the American Bazaar

Last week, in the context of the P5+1/Iran negotiations I wrote: We're familiar with the rules for buying a rug in the souk. If you want the rug more than he wants the deal, you will overpay; if he wants the deal more than you want the rug, you win...

November 27, 2013

America as the Protector of Putin, Assad, and Khamenei

When protests broke out in Syria in late 2011, Russia hoped for a short, nasty war as a matter of Russian national interest -- just enough to put the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Sunnis in their place.  Violence from its own Sunni Muslim...

November 7, 2013

Egypt Turning to the Russians? Not so Fast

Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Egypt was a blatant fence-mender. He said the Egyptian interim coalition's democratic roadmap was "being carried out to the best of our conceptions," and added that the aid suspension was not to be seen as "pu...

October 24, 2013

The Confluence of Events in Syria

Not saying that it will happen -- not even that it might.  But if you don't watch the confluence of events in Syria, you'll miss the possibility that it could. Now that Washington is finished with last summer's Elizabeth O'Bagy kerfuffle ...

October 20, 2013

We're Talking (While They're Acting)

Churchill's dictum, "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war," is a concept without application in much of the world.  Western-style negotiations seek common ground and compromise, while others seek only to "jaw" while the work of war goes on. ...

September 28, 2013

Poor America

As he waited in the wings at the United Nations, President Obama was strcuk with this sledgehammer from Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff: Tampering... in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affro...

September 20, 2013

Jews, Germans, and Poison Gas

Jewish organizational support for President Obama's temporary determination to enforce international norms and his own red line on Syrian use of chemical weapons brought out the nasty legions. DavidDuke.com and Blacklistednews.com, among others, were...

September 11, 2013

While we Wait: the Real Lesson of Iraq

A flurry of diplomatic activity has overtaken the Senate debate on the use of force by the United States against Syria as punishment for/deterrence against the use of chemical weapons. The world awaits the next meeting, the next announcement, the nex...

September 9, 2013

On Syria: Americans are War-Wary, Not Weary

President Obama and supporters of an American strike on Syria have characterized negative American public opinion as "war-weariness."  They are trying to overcome it with exhortations about America's special responsibility, or America's credibil...

August 20, 2013

The Triumph of Illusion in the Middle East

The Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964. Like most revolutionary movements, it wrote a Charter to define its aims and fundamental policies, including: Article 17: The partitioning of Palestine, which took place in 1947, and the es...

August 1, 2013

Fixing Palestine

The greatest success of the Arab States against Israel (there aren't many) has been to change the terms of reference. In 1947, the Arabs unanimously rejected the UN Partition Plan for Palestine and in 1948 attacked Israel, Goliath against David. Thro...

July 30, 2013

Paying in Advance

Like the dog that finally caught the bus he chased, Secretary of State John Kerry now has to figure out what to do with what he's got. He induced, bribed, cajoled, and threatened Israelis and Palestinians to return to the "negotiating table." The Pal...

July 25, 2013

Agitating for an American War in Syria

Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, wants to go to war in Syria -- not with Syria, necessarily, but in Syria.  And it's not really war, although it involves weapons and American troops (in the air -- Sen. Levin has bee...

July 10, 2013

The U.S. Gets a 'Mulligan' in Egypt

Egyptian Army Commander and Defense Minister Abdul Fattah al-Sisi was faced in Cairo with that experts say was the largest human gathering in history -- somewhere between 17 and 30 million people -- demanding a chance to redo the 2011 revolution. A "...

June 29, 2013

Russian Troubles in Syria, and Ours

It is tempting to watch American foreign policy and Russian foreign policy and assign all the naiveté and sloppy thinking to one and all the clever, chess-playing skills to the other. But that would be wrong. Neither side is very clever and Russia's ...

June 23, 2013

Abandoning Vietnam, er, Afghanistan

The Taliban carefully scripted the kerfluffle to embarrass the United States. Its not like we didn't know they were in Qatar. For eighteen months, Doha has been the scene of sometimes secret, sometimes leaked U.S. talks with the Taliban -- and withou...

June 21, 2013

How to Not Inspire Confidence

This is what happens when the President of the United States is dragged into making foreign and defense policy decisions, instead of determining American interests and then making policy to suit. And it is what happens when the president fails to mak...

June 17, 2013

People, Privacy, and Fear

The American people often prove to be more sophisticated about themselves, their rights, and their government than they get credit for. Even if they can't enumerate the clauses, most people know the Bill of Rights is designed to restrict the governme...

June 5, 2013

Wissam Allouche and the Touchy Problems of Immigration

Parties on various sides of the immigration in the United State have largely primarily on issues surrounding Hispanic immigrants because there are a lot of them and numbers get attention. Human Rights Watch, for example, created a handy-dandy checkli...

May 26, 2013

Hezb'allah: A Chicken on the EU Terror List

The United States, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, and Bahrain designate Hezb'allah a terrorist organization; Britain and Australia outlaw only Hezb'allah's "terrorist wing" but permit its "political wing" to organize and raise money (only for polit...

May 25, 2013

Obama's Still Trying to Define the War

President Obama visited the National Defense University this week to take another shot (no pun) at defining the war in which the United States is embroiled. He talked about the world-view of the enemy. The terrorism we face is fueled by a common i...

May 21, 2013

Russia is Playing a Losing Hand like a Winner

History is back and so are the Russians. After an interregnum of twenty years, during which the communist Soviet Union was demolished and a crony capitalist, Russian kleptocracy turned inward to establish firm control of journalists (oh wait, that m...

May 10, 2013

Mistaking Cause and Effect in Syria

Russia's President Vladimir Putin called Prime Minister Netanyahu during Mr. Netanyahu's visit to China, surely a diplomatic oddity.  (Chinese Premier Li Kegiang answers the hotline in Beijing and says, "Oh, sure.  Hey, Bibi, it's for you."...

April 23, 2013

The Secretary's Epiphany

As a U.S. senator, Chuck Hagel went to great lengths to assure people he was not the "Senator from Israel," and HE seemed surprised when people objected to his remark, "The political reality is ... that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up...

April 19, 2013

Shut That Window of Opportunity, Please

Almost lost in the terrible events in Boston is the Obama administration's dire warning this week that the window for diplomatic success in the Middle East is closing -- not on Iran's quest for nuclear capability; not on the Syrian war; not on sectar...

April 19, 2013

All Terrorism is Connected

The Tarnaev brothers were cruelly successful, but they are far from the only terrorists over the past decade with big ideas about carnage in America. There is a temptation with each act of terror to see it as an isolated act, connected to the mental ...

April 16, 2013

Happy Birthday, Israel

If countries were people and Israel was an American, it would begin to collect Social Security in nine months. It would be eligible for a reverse mortgage and only a few years from mandatory withdrawals from its 401k. We'd be talking retirement and w...

April 6, 2013

What Do We Want Done in Syria?

A maxim in the United States Army is, "Don't tell a soldier to do something; tell him what you want done." President Roosevelt didn't tell General Eisenhower to cross the English Channel; he told him to obtain the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germ...

March 20, 2013

The Israel Test and the America Test

President Obama will have an opportunity during his visit to see some of Israel's pioneering technology. The list (with thanks to Tom Gross) includes energy alternatives; search and rescue technology; a bionic exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to w...

March 15, 2013

Israel has a Government, Mr. President

That's something to remember when you arrive there next week. Israel has a government, elected by its people in a free, fair, open and democratic election. Multiple parties representing widely divergent points of view met a wildly diverse electorate...

March 13, 2013

Training Syrian Rebels to Conquer Golan Heights and Shoot Down Israeli Aircraft

No, they don't say it quite like that.  But after years of hypocrisy, the Obama administration has admitted that while it declined to arm Syrian rebels directly for fear that weapons would end up in the hands of al-Qaeda forces, it has been quie...

February 25, 2013

Secretary Kerry's Maiden Speech

Stipulating that foreign aid can be an important part of American foreign policy, and further that trade is an important component of U.S. foreign policy; Secretary of State John Kerry made two really important mistakes in his maiden speech, delivere...

February 19, 2013

Obama at Ramallah

President Obama's plans in the Middle East include three and a half hours in Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The president's hope is to find a mechanism for advancing Israeli-Palestinian "peace." The appearance of the Presiden...

February 11, 2013

What Happens When the Government Tells the Truth

Two revelatory pieces of news hit Washington last week.  The first was a Justice Department "White Paper" that outlined which people the Executive Branch can kill without recourse to courts or review by Congress.  The second was Leon Panett...

January 31, 2013

Chuck Hagel at J Street: Mediocre Boilerplate

For all the thunder about the "missing" J Street speech Chuck Hagel gave in 2009, watching it was almost a letdown.  There is simply no "smoking-gun" anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism there, aside from a single reference to some policies working ...

January 30, 2013

The President's Wars and Women in Combat

It is unsurprising that a president who sees war primarily as "whack-a-mole" with drones directed from afar dropping bombs on adversaries, and who believes that removing American troops from war zones ends wars, would believe that women belong in all...

January 23, 2013

Israel's Election Changes the Guard - and More

Israel had a party on Election Day.  The weather was beautiful and people went to the beach and the parks by the tens of thousands.  They were in a very good mood.  And why not? For all the gloom and doom about Israel, its neighbors a...

January 17, 2013

We're Leaving Now; The Wars Remain

As President Obama stood with Afghan President Karzai to announce the Afghanization of the war, it seems appropriate to weigh the president's words on the way out against his words on the way in. We were in Afghanistan, of course, long before he got ...

January 13, 2013

The Strange Arrest of Zaki al-Sakani

Much of the Palestinian-Israeli Oslo "peace process" mythology is grounded in the idea that if "the Palestinians" were treated as a single, responsible partner, they would behave like one.  If "the Palestinians" got enough foreign aid, they woul...

January 10, 2013

Where the Pressure Lies in the Middle East

The United States is about to get new secretaries of state and defense and a new director of Central Intelligence.  It is devoutly to be hoped that they will not travel in the well-worn grooves of the Israel-Palestinian "peace process."  Th...

January 7, 2013

What to Do About a Coup

How does a secretary of state decide whether and when to put the United States on record regarding what appears to be a coup -- the decision of a sitting ruler to remain in place in contravention of the terms of the country's constitution? The Venezu...

December 29, 2012

'Carnage in Schedule Two'

Author Lela Gilbert, a Christian who lived for years in Israel, spoke for many of Israel's supporters when she said she finds the international community's attacks on the Jewish State "puzzling, especially when atrocities are taking place every day i...

December 4, 2012

Back to Being a 'Sh**ty Little Country'

Before Israel sat in the UN dock facing Mahmoud Abbas, a man who denied the Holocaust in his doctoral dissertation and denies the link between Jews, the land of Israel, and Jerusalem, the Israeli government said the Palestinian statehood gambit would...

November 30, 2012

Why Treat Sudan Like a Normal Country?

Iran has made common cause with similarly nasty countries around the world to promote an anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Western agenda. This includes the transfer of weapons as well as the training of terrorists who return to their places of ori...

November 21, 2012

The Commander in Chief's Lack of Military Awareness

Israelis should be pleased that President Obama offered Hamas no comfort in his press conference in Thailand.  "There's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.  We are fully su...

November 21, 2012

Ceasing Fire

It is an odd thing, this ceasing of fire proposed to be negotiated between Israel and Hamas.  A throwback to wars of old, it postulates that in the absence of shooting, the parties will retrieve their dead, celebrate their festivals (see the 191...

November 7, 2012

The Enemy of my Enemy in Damascus

A reminder to the administration, no matter who is running it: the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.  The friend of my friend is not necessarily my friend.  And the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy, but he may be...

October 31, 2012

Leaving No One Behind

Remember when Barak Obama had a silver tongue? Was a great orator - maybe so much so that it didn't matter what he said, it just mattered that he was the coolest guy in the room, or on the platform, or in front of adoring crowds in front of some phon...

October 28, 2012

Having your Soldiers' Back

The government of Israel traded 1,700 Palestinian terrorists for Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier kidnapped and held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis have been known to trade live terrorists for the bodies of its soldiers held by its enemies...

October 24, 2012

Will the U.S. Take On the Russians to Take Out Assad?

There are two reasons for the U.S. to seek the demise of Bashar Assad's regime -- for what it would mean to Syria and for what it would mean to Iran.  The first is insufficient reason for the U.S. to involve itself directly.  The second rai...

October 22, 2012

What to Do with Sanctions

Western Iran-watchers have been pleased these past few weeks to see evidence that international sanctions against the Islamic Republic appear to have precipitated the collapse of local currency and demonstrations in the marketplace.  The EU adde...

October 4, 2012

Rethinking Palestine 2012

In 2011, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), failed to win U.N. acceptance of Palestine as an independent state1.  This year, he lowered the bar to upgraded status within the U.N.  In the intervening year, Palestinian fin...

September 25, 2012

Obama in Denial on the War against America

The Obama administration was wrong when first it said that what happened in Cairo and Benghazi was a spontaneous gush of righteous Muslim indignation.  After days of insisting that a snippet of YouTube trash was responsible -- not U.S. policy an...

September 20, 2012

Does AP stand for 'Associated Propaganda'?

Associated Press told the story this way: "PARIS -- A small package bomb exploded inside a kosher grocery store in a Paris suburb Wednesday, wounding at least one person[1]...The reason for the attack was unclear, but it rattled nerves amid global t...

September 13, 2012

Mrs. Clinton and American Sensibilities

In an effort to protect the delicate sensibilities of Egyptian rioters who invaded the American Embassy and tore down the American flag, Secretary of State Clinton accepted at face value the claim that the rioters were just so outraged and horrified ...

September 9, 2012

Relying on US Intelligence

Jerusalem and the resettlement of Palestinian refugees disappeared from the Democratic Party platform; language that characterized Hamas as unacceptable to the United States -- not only to Israel -- disappeared.  Jerusalem is back.  But the...

September 6, 2012

President Obama's Tin Ear

President Obama went to Ft. Bliss, TX to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq.  He expected the soldiers to cheer him for bringing them home.  But he received a poor, awkward and almost silent hear...

September 1, 2012

Russia, Unfortunately, Being Russia

Before the pundits start telling you the Romney campaign stepped into a time-warp on the subject of Russia, it's worth considering what adviser Rich Williamson said and what it means.  "They're trampling civil rights," and "they're our foe," and...

August 25, 2012

South African BDS - or Just BS?

The government of South Africa has defined the State of Israel as not including Beersheva, Yad Mordechai, Acco, Afula, and Nahariya.  It creates an "Arab Enclave" in Jaffa not governed by Israel.   It reduces the borders of Israel in t...

August 20, 2012

'Cooling off Israel' and Riling up Americans

While noting in The Washington Post that Israel "cannot afford to outsource its security to another country," Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, former chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, contends that President Obama can/should frame "a nuclear-armed...

August 16, 2012

Is Hillary Clueless or Cavalier? Neither Helps

Last week in this space I wrote about Secretary of State Clinton's cavalier call for the people of Aleppo to rise up against the Assad regime.  When they did -- as when President Bush (41) called on the Shi'ites and Kurds of Iraq to rise up agai...

August 14, 2012

Standard Chartered Bank and Iran. Yawn?

Americans are jaded by the size and shape of the financial crisis that ripped through banking in 2008.  Bernie Madoff, AIG, "too big to fail," Goldman Sachs, subprime lending, unfathomable derivatives, and underwater mortgages make it hard to wo...

August 10, 2012

Rise Up and Die: Hillary Clinton on Aleppo in February

With the rebels and the Syrian government both claiming the upper hand in Aleppo, the only truth on this side of the ocean is that the war is grinding up the city and its people.  Ever wonder how Secretary of State Clinton feels about that? Less...

August 9, 2012

The beginning of accountability in Egypt?

Here's an odd story: On 2 August, the government of Israel publicly warned Israelis to leave the Sinai because it had information about potential terrorist activity.  On the 4th, the U.S. government followed suit.  On the evening of the 6th...

August 7, 2012

Obama Trying to Buy Allies in Syrian Revolution

The news is out -- President Obama is not just watching the gory events unfold in Syria. The president signed an intelligence finding permitting the CIA to help the opposition with $25 million's worth of non-lethal assistance, possibly including comm...

August 1, 2012

The Palestinian Culture of Slapping Israel

Mitt Romney is being castigated for praising the culture that has allowed a democratic, (mainly) free market Israel, operating under the rule of law, to thrive amid decades of threat and periodic open warfare and a heavy defense burden.  Actuall...

July 29, 2012

Palestinian Financial Crisis Looms

The Palestinians face an economic crisis more severe than the World Bank had anticipated; the Bank fears that the territories may become "ungovernable."  This is not actually new, but since the Bank in its panic is considering bypassing restrict...

July 26, 2012

Back to the U.S.-Israel Future

As Governor Romney leaves for overseas travel that includes Israel, he doesn't have to be ready to solve the problems of the region, or have a "peace plan" in his pocket.  A few basic principles -- previously observed by both Republican and Demo...

July 3, 2012

When Everything's Been Said

It was at dinner in the garden of a well-known analyst of Iran.  He'd spent years writing prolifically and astutely about the regime, its progress on nuclear technology, dissidents, U.S. policy, Israeli policy, and the machinations of the P5+1....

June 24, 2012

Staying Out of Syria

Here are the questions on Syria: what is the American obligation?  What is the American interest?  What is the American capability?  There is no obligation.  Where there is a treaty, the United States has an obligation to spend Am...

June 10, 2012

Facing the Brutal Reality of American Syrian Policy

The wailing over Syria has reached fever pitch -- even Kofi Annan said that without regime change, "[t]he future [emphasis added] is likely to be one of brutal oppression, massacres, sectarian violence and even all-out civil war."  But the conve...

June 3, 2012

The ICG Rethinking the "Peace Process"

The International Crisis Group defines itself as an "independent, non-partisan, [sic] source of analysis ... on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict."  While presidents and secretaries of state have relied it upon for analysis in pla...

June 1, 2012

Military Exercises and Political Correctness

It can't be said that the U.S. is doing nothing about Syria.  The administration created the "Atrocities Prevention Board," which failed the test at Houla.  It is supporting the feckless Kofi Annan, who is adding to a resume that includes t...

May 18, 2012

Why is the U.S. doing Special Ops exercise with Egypt and Pakistan?

NATO's snub of Israel -- a "major non-NATO ally" and member of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue -- in its Chicago summit this weekend was simply waved away.  "Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR (Afghanistan and Kosovo missions)," s...

May 11, 2012

The Rights of Indigenous People and the Rest of Us

In early 2011, President Obama announced that the United States would sign the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Now the U.N. wants us to give Mt. Rushmore to the Indians.  James Anaya, U.N. special rapporteur on the ri...

May 8, 2012

The New Israeli Coalition and the Elephant in the Cabinet Room

Rarely do politics in a democratic country wrap up as neatly as they did for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.  Having scheduled new parliamentary elections that he was assuredly going to win, today he announced that the coali...

April 30, 2012

Lessons from the Fall of Saigon

The 37th anniversary of the fall of Saigon today is a good time to review the utility of American security promises -- including those purchased with American blood -- to countries fighting ideologically based insurgencies. There were 540,000 America...

April 17, 2012

Mystery Ship to Syria Raises Questions

The weekend report of a German-owned, Ukrainian-chartered ship carrying weapons to Syria should raise questions and alarm bells.  Der Spiegel reported that the Atlantic Cruiser, owned by the German company Bockstiegel, had been chartered by the ...

April 15, 2012

Between War and a Warm Embrace

A lick of historicism would serve the Obama administration well in its much-too-friendly relationship with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and other manifestations of the Arab uprising.  There is a political space between going to war with count...

April 1, 2012

What's on That Ship, and Where Is It Going?

Once more, it is a tough choice between standing with Amnesty International or with the Obama administration.  Once more, Amnesty International wins.  Ouch. U.S. arms transfers to third parties are regulated by the Arms Export Control Act (...

March 29, 2012

Obama's 'Space' for Russia

The sound bite went viral -- the president of the United States asking the Russian president to carry a message to Putin for "space" in dealing with contentious missile defense issues until after the election so the American president would have "mor...

March 22, 2012

Does It Matter if He Was Neo-Nazi or Muslim? (updated)

Update from Thomas Lifson: Mohammed Mera is dead, having leapt from his apartment window, guns blazing. The 23 year old is being called a "lone wolf" though he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan for terror training and claimed to be Al Qaeda relate...

March 20, 2012

The Correction Doesn't Help

The EU's Catherine Ashton was horrified, mortified -- she said -- that her comments to a group of Palestinian children following the murder of Jewish children and a rabbi at a school in Toulouse, France were taken out of context.  The first tran...

March 19, 2012

Presidents, Emperors, and Volunteer Forces

Some things should be difficult -- like sending your sons and daughters to war.  The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, separated the commander in chief of the force from the war-making authority; it was designed to keep the president -- who is ...

March 15, 2012

Bravo to Italian Police (and a Warning)

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been subject to harsh criticism for doing surveillance on certain Muslim organizations and neighborhoods in an effort to stay ahead of people plotting terrorism in New York.  Typical is the Huffington Po...

February 19, 2012

Foreign Aid and American Priorities

It is a struggle to decide who, if anyone, has a claim to US foreign aid dollars.  It is, after all, money earned by American taxpayers and sent to people who didn't earn it, at least not in the traditional sense.  Should it be used to enco...

February 3, 2012

SEAL Team 6: A Big Secret, Unless Obama Wants to Brag

Having to choose between siding with the Obama administration and siding with the ACLU is tough -- but the ACLU wins this one. The ACLU sued the CIA for information about the deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, and Samir Khan in CIA/JSO...

January 27, 2012

Israel and the US Perspectives on Iran at Odds

The kerfuffle over the postponement of the highly touted "Austere Challenge 12" joint US-Israel military exercise is over.  Officials in both countries are now on the same page:  it was a "joint decision" having nothing to do with finances,...

January 10, 2012

The Taliban and the PLO

The story below is not a history lesson; it is a cautionary tale.  What happens when the United States ignores the nature and behavior of an adversary and pretends that a) people wedded to a violent ideology and believing deeply in their ultimat...

December 21, 2011

The Chicken Theory of Islamist Parties

The "pothole theory" is time-honored in the U.S.; if a party doesn't meet local needs, it will be ousted in the next election.  It is a hopeful theory, because it is self-correcting. With Islamic conservatism sweeping the Middle East and North...

December 19, 2011

'A Monstrous, Ramshackle, Stinking Machine'

In an odd cosmic juxtaposition, Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il died at nearly the same time. They bounded the opposite ends of 20th Century moral and political thought: a soaring belief in the power of morality and intellect on one end vs. the degradat...

November 23, 2011

Where Ron Paul Meets Barack Obama

They look like political opposites: Ron Paul is a traditional isolationist; Barack Obama sees himself comfortable with many cultures and religions.  But they share an odd understanding that the United States is, by nature and by history, a cause...

November 6, 2011

Striking Iran? Not Likely

Iran is a central pillar of evil in the Middle East, Central Asia and through Afghanistan to Pakistan.  It threatens Israel in apocalyptic terms; arms and trains proxies that kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan; orchestrates plots to kill dip...

October 16, 2011

The Release of Gilad Shalit is The End of the 'Peace Process'

To redeem captives is a Jewish imperative, so the Israeli government's decision to pay Hamas ransom for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit is not a surprise. Although the terms haven't materially changed in a year, the timing is not a surprise either....

October 12, 2011

This Is a Screwy Time for Optimism, Isn't It?

This would seem a screwy time for optimism.  We're riding the edge of a double-dip recession, with political backbiting and the abdication of America abroad both militarily and politically.  It is worth noting, then, that at this moment, a ...

October 5, 2011

Obama's Turkey Policy Is Proving to Be a Turkey

President Obama has held Turkey up as a model of a moderate, democratic Muslim country.  He even made Ankara his first stop in the Muslim world after taking office.  The State Department welcomed Turkey's decision to host a NATO missile def...

September 28, 2011

Negotiating 'Peace' and Not Getting There

The Middle East Quartet (United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia) is promoting new "peace talks" as a means of holding off the Palestinian bid for independence.  American pundits are proffering ways ...