The Middle East
Melancholy Lessons from Iraq
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The unfolding collapse of Iraq’s government before the legions of al Qaeda jihadists is the capstone of Barack Obama’s incompetent and politicized foreign policy. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), armed with plundered American weapons and flush with stolen money, is consolidating a Sunni terrorist state …
Lots of Recent Man-Caused Disasters
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Even the administration is now considering some sort of overseas contingency operation to cope with an outbreak of workplace violence worldwide. Each morning it seems we read that Islamic killers of Boko Haram have kidnapped or slaughtered more children. Israel alleges Hamas affiliates are behind the kidnapping …
The Incoherence of Western Foreign Policy
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The crisis in Ukraine is just the latest in a long series of foreign policy failures brought about by the incoherence in our thinking about foreign relations. On the one hand, we have championed ethnic-national self-determination as the highest international good, while on the other we have assumed that …
Western Arrogance and Decline
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine For three centuries the West built up enormous economic, cultural, and military capital that dwarfs and dominates that of the rest of the world. Other countries may hate and resent Europe and the United States, but they still have to imitate, adapt, or steal the technology, financial systems, and …
Kerry Boasts of ‘Pluralistic’ Syria Once Assad Gone
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, was recently interviewed about Syria. While many of his assertions can be debated, one especially requires a response. Throughout the interview, he repeatedly insisted that, if Bashar Assad would only leave power, everything would go well — especially for all of Syria’s minorities. In his words: “I …
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Obama’s Recessional
There is nothing accidental about the president’s apparent foreign-policy blunders. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Does Barack Obama have a strategy? He is often criticized for being adrift. Nonetheless, while Obama has never articulated strategic aims in the manner of Ronald Reagan or the two Bushes, it is not therefore true that there …