We do what we damn well please: The demented American exceptionalism behind the neo-con foreign policy con
The right wants to substitute religious belief and ideology for reality and smarts. The Iran deal won’t derail them A few blocks south of where I sit, the 70th General Assembly just opened in the U.N.’s glass slab on Manhattan’s East…
How the Iran Deal Alters Ties That Bind
Whatever one thinks of the accord governing Iran’s nuclear program, Iran and the six nations that sat across from it for 18 tough months of negotiation—the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China—will begin this autumn to implement the deal…
America owns this nightmare: Everything Thomas Friedman and the media gets wrong about the migrant crisis
The refugee disaster unfolding across Europe is the result of decades — even centuries — of Western policies It is not that the West, or America in particular, is responsible for everything that befalls our awful world. Readers sometimes make…
Why Europe’s Migrant Crisis Also Belongs to America
Now that the flood of migrants into Europe has reached truly historic proportions, it’s time to acknowledge this as a moment of transformation—and not only in Europe. We’ve all seen the images, watched the television footage, and read the news…
Outright lies from the New York Times: What you need to know about the dangerous new phase in the Ukraine crisis
While establishment media toe Washington’s line, violence and instability have shaken the Ukraine this week The slightly fetid “phony war” in Ukraine—the unsettling stagnation noted in this space a month ago—is emphatically over. Suddenly there is movement on several fronts,…
3 Major Lessons From the China Crisis That Wasn’t
Now that the stock market has ended its foolish careening in response to China’s modest, sensible adjustment in its exchange-rate mechanism, where are we? To borrow from Donald Rumsfeld’s famous observation about defense planning, there’s what we know, what we…
Journal Entry #9
NEW PRESTON, CONN.—I wrote about markets this week—the appalling crack-up in global exchanges, wholly irrational—and I wrote about journalism. I’m invested in both. What pennies I have are in some kind of mutual fund, but never mind that. I have…
The government’s authoritarian war on journalism: How a flaccid press enabled this Orwellian disgrace
Officials launch an all-out assault on free press — with nary an objection from the Fourth Estate’s guardians. Many readers will know, or know of, the Committee to Protect Journalists. It has been around since the early 1980s and does…
Why China’s Slowdown Will Lead to Sustainable Growth
In less than a week China’s modest, by-the-book devaluation of its currency appears to have escalated into a full-scale political crisis, complete with reports of a Mao-style purge of top leaders and tanks in Tiananmen Square. Suddenly, the world’s highest-flying…
Why a Drop in the Overvalued Yuan Won’t Start a Currency War
A week of mayhem in the financial markets, grandstanding lawmakers on Capitol Hill accusing China of “rigging the rules again”—all because the overvalued yuan depreciated toward a market rate in three dramatic trading sessions. Could we see some evidence of…
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