American empire is over: Somebody tell John Kerry!
New York Times embarrassingly praises Biden and Kerry’s sorrowful efforts, all unaware U.S. exceptionalism is dead We have made ourselves a navel-gazing folk, a little like Americans of the 19th century — until we lunged into the world by bravely…
Why Kerry’s Iran Deal Will Hold Up
Secretary of State Kerry pulled off a hat trick in Sunday’s pre-dawn hours, when six world powers and Iran announced an interim deal in Geneva on the latter’s nuclear program. Kerry was all over the Sunday morning talk shows, soft-pedaling…
Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie
More misleading half-truths from a paper too cowed by power and myth to tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy Never before have I written a column concerning nothing more than a pair of quotation marks. Then again, never until…
Why a Deal with Iran on Nukes Remains Elusive
It was a wild ride last week in Geneva, where the foreign ministers of six world powers assembled with Iranian negotiators for a second round of talks on the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. A deal could come, a deal is…
Are Things Actually Looking Up in the Middle East?
It is only a faint outline—call it a pencil sketch—but the lines of a significantly remade Middle East are suddenly falling into place. We have to wait for the region’s leaders and the diplomats asserting the influence of interested outsiders…
Here Comes Obama’s Big Moment with Iran
It is still a thrill an hour in Washington. Do we have a government? Do we pay our bills? Two days of talks in Geneva this week will prove just as big. They begin Tuesday, the topic is Iran, and…
Stand up and fight, Mr. President!
The moment requires courage, conviction — and presidential leadership. How will President Obama respond? Remarkable doings at the U.N. this week. Remember these days. They are going to change the way we understand the dynamic in the Middle East —…
How Iran and Israel Put Obama in the Hot Seat
We begin a big, consequential week in world politics. This year’s UN General Assembly will put President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, in the same room, addressing the same heads of state, walking the…
Obama’s Putin Policy: Flinch and Retreat
Washington and Moscow have a lot to talk about, but President Obama canceled the scheduled one-on-one meeting with President Vladimir Putin next month, as the two had planned. The Syrian crisis, a multitude of questions concerning Iran, nuclear arms reductions,…
Why the U.S. Is Crashing in the Middle East
Is it too soon to suggest that the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is collapsing? An unusual spurt of news from across the region points to failed US policies: (1) The U.S. has been outpaced in the region since the Arab…
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