PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Predictable Mess on Syria’s Border with Turkey
Trump just missed an opportunity to pull back troops without inducing another bloodbath. In less than a week, a new front has opened in Syria’s 8-year, all-but-over war, featuring hot- and cold-running proxies from its earliest days. Syrian sovereignty is…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: At UN, European Allies & Trump Clip Pompeo’s Hawk Wings
After the recent strikes on Saudi oil facilities, E-3 leaders offered a sop to the secretary of state but resisted key elements of his “maximum hostility” campaign towards Iran while Trump also distanced himself. This week’s General Assembly at the United Nations…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Now That Washington’s Most Dangerous Man is Sacked
This week provides chances to monitor resets in Trump’s foreign policy after John Bolton’s destructive tenure. The most dangerous man in Washington has been sacked. John Bolton’s suitably humiliating departure from the Trump White House last week leaves the president free…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Establishment is Changing its Tune on Russia
Russophobic rhetoric persists in Washington, but a counter-argument is emerging. Are Western democracies, the U.S. and France in the lead, rethinking the hostility toward Russia they conjured out of nothing since Moscow responded to the coup Washington cultivated in Ukraine…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Finally Time for DNC Email Evidence
The crumbling of Russiagate focuses attention on the considerable evidence that Russian intelligence agencies charged with intrusion into DNC servers had nothing to do with it. Three years after the narrative we call Russiagate was framed and incessantly promoted, it…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Brighter US-Iran Prospects
Despite the seemingly escalating risks of war, last week also produced an unexpected drift toward the mahogany table. There was no shortage of alarming incidents in and around the Persian Gulf last week. But the risks of open conflict between…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Accelerating Imperial Decline
Washington’s foreign policy towards Iran is driven by desperation rather than a reasoned understanding of a world in historically significant flux. That can lead only to a continuing succession of failures. The kinetic events of the past week in Washington,…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Regrouping the Nuclear Dealmakers
There are three good reasons for Iran to go back to the table, says Patrick Lawrence. Does the Trump administration want to negotiate peaceably with Iran, or is it intent on bringing the Islamic Republic to its knees while setting…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A Week of Dangerous Developments from Iran to North Korea
The increasingly aggressive moves by Trump’s hawkish advisers give the impression of a palace coup, writes Patrick Lawrence. Neoconservative hawks in the Trump administration, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, moved swiftly to…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran’s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy
Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo’s withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers. A Decisive Defeat in Long-Running Battle with Foreign Policy Minders Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement last week that no importer…
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