PATRICK LAWRENCE: Accelerating Imperial Decline
Washington’s foreign policy towards Iran is driven by desperation rather than a reasoned understanding of a world in historically significant flux. That can lead only to a continuing succession of failures. The kinetic events of the past week in Washington,…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Regrouping the Nuclear Dealmakers
There are three good reasons for Iran to go back to the table, says Patrick Lawrence. Does the Trump administration want to negotiate peaceably with Iran, or is it intent on bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees while setting…
Journal Entry #48
Memory and forgetting, power and the press. NORFOLK, CONN., JUNE 6—The New York Times carried an interesting opinion item in its Tuesday editions. This is worthy of comment all by itself, of course: Reflecting the Times’ very essential duties in…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US-China Decoupling
The long, dense economic relationship appears to have passed its peak, writes Patrick Lawrence. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China is swiftly taking a decisive turn for the worse. Step by step, each measure prompting retaliation, a spat so…
The Empire Podcast – Ep 106 Bolton-Pompeo Axis feat Patrick Lawrence
Guest: Patrick Lawrence. We discuss President Trump’s relationship with his chosen cabinet hawks, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and what Lawrence sees as a foreign policy coup by the Bolton-Pompeo axis. Patrick Lawrence is a columnist and essayist who specializes…
The Revelations of WikiLeaks: No. 3—The Most Extensive Classified Leak in History
The “Iraq War Logs” disgorged an unprecedented profusion of documents, military reports and videos, reports Patrick Lawrence. For WikiLeaks, 2010 was an exceptionally eventful year. In April the transparency organization released “Collateral Murder,” the video of U.S. Army helicopters as they shot more…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A Week of Dangerous Developments from Iran to North Korea
The increasingly aggressive moves by Trump’s hawkish advisers give the impression of a palace coup, writes Patrick Lawrence. Neoconservative hawks in the Trump administration, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, moved swiftly to…
Journal Entry #47
1. Sharmine Narwani and American media. NORFOLK, CONN., MAY 7—I recently published one of my long, two-part Q&A exchanges, this one with Sharmine Narwani, a correspondent residing in Beirut and one of the very few to cover the Syrian conflict…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran’s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy
Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo’s withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers. A Decisive Defeat in Long-Running Battle with Foreign Policy Minders Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement last week that no importer…
Sharmine Narwani on the end of the Syrian war and the “post-imperial Middle East”
Middle East correspondent Narwani sees a new era emerging in Asia, while Trump, Pompeo and Bolton bluster In part one of my exchange with Sharmine Narwani, the Beirut-based correspondent dissected the just-ended Syrian conflict as one of the very few journalists…
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