Why ‘Bravehearted’ Scots Will Vote for Independence
Remember Paul McCartney’s odd protest song after Ireland’s “Bloody Sunday” in 1972? “Give Ireland back to the Irish,” it went, “make Ireland Irish today.” Now it’s Scotland’s turn. The Irish got it done with generations of grinding violence and then…
The Mess Obama Made on the Way to the So-Called Ceasefire in Ukraine
Assuming the ceasefire declared in Ukraine as of sundown Friday holds—and the early signs are favorable—we celebrate the end of a conflict that has claimed a startling 2,600 lives since it broke out in April. But not so fast. It’s…
Even the Pope Wants to Stop ISIS; Shouldn’t Obama?
To bomb or not to bomb? That is the debate as we watch the extremist militants of ISIS rampage through Syria and Iraq with the intent of establishing a caliphate that erases the borders between the two. Many members of…
What a Deal Between Ukraine and Russia Could Look Like
All eyes will focus this week on Minsk where Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko. After coming close to armed confrontation over the aid-laden convoy Russia sent into Ukraine’s eastern region last week, the encounter…
Obama Makes the Middle East Our New ‘Quagmire’
Quagmire” is a term commonly associated with Vietnam, but we need to haul it out of storage. There is no other way to describe the mess the Obama administration has led us into in the Middle East. President Obama and…
The Eurozone’s So-Called Recovery Is a Bust
It’s almost a year since the eurozone was supposed to enter recovery mode. But you can’t eat statistics, as people in the southern-rim crisis nations have learned. Even now, the laser-thin growth numbers sustaining the “austerity works” argument are evaporating….
Obama’s Road to Unintended Consequences in Ukraine
Is the ever-tougher economic squeeze of Russia for its not-quite-clear role in the Ukraine crisis a 21st century rerun of the Treaty of Versailles, the recklessly punitive settlement that turned out to be the mulch of the global conflagration that defined…
Let Europe Do the Heavy Political Lift with Putin
“It’d be unwise to say, well, the Russians did it, or the Ukrainian government did it, or the rebels did it.” That is none other than Ron Paul, the former presidential candidate from Texas, talking to Newsmax TV Friday, hours…
How Obama Lost Friends in Europe and Influence Globally
Bad comes to worse in the Obama administration’s ties with Europe. Obama’s trans-Atlantic crisis is less dramatic than his other foreign policy failures: Syria, Egypt, the Mideast, China. But the implications of this debacle could prove profoundly significant—politically and diplomatically,…
Japan and China Vie for 21st Century Dominance
A specter haunts the great powers of East Asia. It is the specter of ethnic chauvinism and a recrudescent nationalism one would have thought a thing of the past. With this comes the possibility of irrational conflict, and for the…
Recent Comments