THE REVELATIONS OF WIKILEAKS: No. 8—Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Published Nothing on Israel & Syria
One myth about WikiLeaks is that it favors U.S. enemies and declines to publish documents against them, while another legend is that WikiLeaks, for obscure reasons, is soft on Israel, reports Patrick Lawrence. As WikiLeaks continued its document releases, and as major news organizations continued…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump’s Weakness for Power
Coercive might and money may be all that matter in Manhattan real estate. But they are bound to sink the president’s take-all-you-want “deal of the century” for Israel. With the publication of the Trump administration’s Mideast “deal of the…
The Art of No Mideast Deal
Donald Trump once advertised an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan as his greatest achievement-in-the-making, but like many of the president’s negotiations, the Kushner-Greenblatt strategy is a one-sided bargain, writes Patrick Lawrence. Whatever happened to President Trump’s “Deal of the Century”—his promise to…
Bibi’s downfall: Is the most dangerous man in the Middle East done for?
Benjamin Netanyahu has set Israel, and the entire Middle East, on a path toward doomsday. Will his fall matter? The political future of Benjamin Netanyahu is at last in doubt. With the Israeli police report recommending criminal charges against the…
A Conversation With Richard Falk, Part 2
On Israel, Palestine, and his work as a UN special rapporteur. When I met Richard Falk shortly before the turn of 2017 into 2018, I found the scholar, lawyer, activist, advocate, adviser, and writer as kinetically thoughtful and plugged-in as…
Trump’s Jerusalem fumble: If the U.S. is out as a Mideast broker, who’s in?
If the White House hoped to coerce Palestinians (and the world) into a peace settlement, it faces a rude awakening Considering President Trump’s sales pitch when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — “nothing more or less than a recognition…
Suddenly, Trump Has Three Middle East Crises on His Hands
President-elect Trump, a novice in foreign affairs, was destined to confront reality. Who would have guessed that the Middle East is the first place he’ll have to get down to his first serious policy decisions? Even a week ago it…
4 More Foreign Policy Challenges that Clinton Could Botch
Hillary Clinton threw down a gauntlet worthy of a medieval knight when she attacked Donald Trump’s foreign policy competence in her much-noted speech in San Diego a couple of months ago. She bragged that she was the voice of experience…
“This will stop only when the American people get fed up”: American exceptionalism, the New York Times, and our foreign policy after Barack Obama
Our smartest modern military historian explains to Salon what’s wrong about our adventures in the Middle East Part one of my interview with Andrew Bacevich, the soldier-turned-scholar who has just published “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Assassins & Iran
Any thought of Biden and his people riding into town on white horses to save the nuclear deal is strictly naïve. I was on the telephone with a friend in Tehran Sunday and found myself telling him about a Christmas card…