
PATRICK LAWRENCE: America the Innocent
The American press has been in the business of keeping readers ignorant since the Cold War—its most essential responsibility turned upside-down—and in our time it gets worse, not better. Vladimir Putin’s annual state-of-the-nation speech, delivered before the Federal Assembly in Moscow…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Inhumanity on Syria
The U.S. hypocrisy to come will be even greater than anything tried by the Trump administration. For a time after Joe Biden took office not quite three months ago, among the questions raised was how the new administration would address…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Blundering Biden Team
What occurred between Washington and Moscow last week, and at a hotel in Anchorage, bears a significance that we must not miss. “Biden is a national embarrassment on foreign policy,” a colleague wrote in a note over the weekend. This…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Missing Link with Europe
While the Continent welcomed the Cold War’s end, America — which would be utterly lost without an enemy — never has. President Joe Biden at last got his chance to “sit at the head of the table” when he addressed (virtually, of…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Diplomacy of No Diplomacy
We now watch as Biden and his foreign policy people effectively allow Israel to dictate the conditions under which the president can fulfill his campaign promise on Iran. A return to diplomacy: Let us hold this thought up to the light….

Biden is Already Breaking Promises
Tony Blinken will be secretary of state with the élan and faux sophistication the nakedly bankrupt foreign policy requires if the U.S. pantomime is to be sustained another four years. It was inevitable that President Joe Biden would betray numerous…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Empire with a Human Face
The Biden people are unlikely to speak of a new cold war with China, but they appear likely to wage one all dressed up as a sophisticated trans–Pacific strategy. Those boneheaded Trump people explained their hostile, xenophobic, fated-to-fail policy toward…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Banner Headlines on Afghanistan Obscure US Motives
Exceptionalism and universalism are the third rails in the U.S.: Any public figure who questions either will suffer a kind of political electrocution. “’It is time to end the forever war.’” That is The New York Times quoting Joe Biden in a banner…