By hollowing out the State Department and replacing expertise with loyalists and dealmakers, Donald Trump has turned American diplomacy into an echo chamber, with dangerous consequences. For most of American history, presidents have understood a basic rule of foreign policy: surround yourself with people who know more than you do. The world is too complex […]
The recent 60 Minutes presentation and accompanying article by The Insider has brought renewed focus on the victims of the Havana Syndrome, the likely perpetrators, and the analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency that found it “very unlikely” that a foreign power was behind the attacks that have resulted in serious injury to a number […]
Who benefits? That is always a key question when it comes to war. The current non-war against Iran raises this in spades, given the lack of any consistent goals from the administration. The Atlantic has counted at least 10 different justifications, none of them accompanied by evidence of the imminent threat to American interests that […]
FIFA World Cup Match Schedule For more than four decades, the United States has designated the Islamic Republic of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Over that time, Iran has conducted major terrorist attacks, attempted many more (including attempts using weapons of mass destruction), and steadily expanded its proxy network, as well as its […]
Bombing of School, Minab, Iran 2026 (Wikipedia) When the current Secretary of Defense was a Fox News commentator, he regularly advocated for pardons of three service members who were charged with war crimes: two charged with murder, and one charged with multiple serious crimes. Hegseth’s television lobbying paid off when President Trump intervened in all […]
(Photo by Adam Hornyak on Unsplash) Fog of war is an issue in every conflict, but when one or both sides ignore the Just War Theory, that fog is denser. Much has been said and written about Epic Resolve, the US-Israeli aerial bombardment of Iran, focusing on its shifting goals, legality, and similar issues. On […]
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003 claimed that Iraq was holding stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist. Mario Tama/Getty Image What follows is a story that anyone who knows me, and lots of people who don’t, have heard many times in […]
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Declaration of Independence Despite reference to the “creator,” this is arguably the most revolutionary secular sentence penned to parchment in […]
Historians may well mark February 28, 2026 as an important turning point — the day that the modern era of Congressional oversight aimed at checking executive branch overreach in foreign affairs ended. That day, President Donald Trump launched an air war against Iran. He said he was aiming at decapitating the despotic Iranian theocracy, and […]
Defense Secretary Hegseth’s introductory letter to the National Defense Strategy (NDS) dismisses all past administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, for pursuing what he calls, but does not define, “cloud castle thinking” by supporting the “rules-based international order.” This is a shallow, ideologically driven misreading. The rules-based international order is not a fantasy; it is a […]