Obama Needs Putin to Salvage His Failed Syrian Strategy
Now that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is an accomplished fact, the Ukraine conversation, is all about consequences. And there will be a lot of them, intended or otherwise. In coming weeks how many fall to Moscow and how many to…
Misinformation, disinformation, lies: Can the New York Times’ foreign coverage be trusted at all?
The Times walks back a story about Syria and chemical weapons, a reminder of the media’s complicity with power The big doings do not stop in the Middle East. We now have a deal on Iran’s nuclear program that anyone…
Why Iran Is Now Obama’s Best Middle East Bet
“What are we supposed to do now?” pundits and policymakers ask these days. The full question being, “What now that the Middle East spins like a dervish and the Obama administration has lost its grip on every major issue in…
Washington hates real democracy: The reality is worse than anything Robert Gates suggests
It’s deeper than Gates’ new book: We’ve no control over events, but — dangerously — keep pretending we do The third anniversary of the Arab Spring is upon us. Three years ago next week Tunisians toppled the crooked regime of…
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…
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…
Why Syria Is Obama’s Foreign Policy Proving Ground
It is getting hard to count all the surprises arising from the Syrian crisis. And there are more coming. Outcomes unthinkable even a week ago can now be responsibly imagined—and pursued. Atop this columnist’s wish list: (1) Relations between Washington…
Let’s hope for an American defeat over Syria
It’s time to walk away from the deadly, irrational myth of American might The Syria crisis deepens not by the day but by the hour, and it delivers us to the threshold of a reality that will cause some to…
Obama’s Dithering, Dickering, Dire Foreign Policy
Last week was a stinging passage for President Obama as he tried and mostly failed to find support, at home and abroad, for his plan to bomb Syrian military facilities. Things will not improve for the beleaguered administration in days to…
Manipulated by power: What is wrong with the New York Times?
The government is manipulating facts. There’s no credible evidence on Syria. Why is the Times pretending otherwise? The conflict between democracy at home and empire abroad has beset this nation since the Spanish-American War, a brief interlude of imperial display…
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