Category: McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Unwavering democratic doctrines will let US shape events again

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WASHINGTON — America’s top foreign policy to-do’s in 2014 include preventing Iran from reaching the nuclear threshold, addressing the humanitarian disaster in Syria, containing an expansionist Russia, managing a rising China and reclaiming its own voice on human rights. Let’s take these one at a time. Preventing a nuclear Iran: The global agreement over Iran’s …

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Strong US ties to Israel are the key to a lasting peace in Palestine

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Peace – true peace – is more than the absence of war, more than a temporary respite from continual conflict. True peace rests on trust between parties, and it’s rooted in on-the-ground conditions that ensure its viability. That’s true whether one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in this case Israel, has deep-seated ties to the …

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Soothing words in Israel won’t pull peace from Mideast flames

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“Put yourself in their shoes,” President Obama said of the Palestinians, imploring his Israeli audience in Jerusalem to work for peace. “Look at the world through their eyes.” A fine sentiment, smoothly expressed. But if, on his recent swing through Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, Obama hoped to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, he will …

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Tide of war not receding; dangers will mount as U.S. exits prematurely

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Surveying the Greater Middle East, where chaos reigns from Egypt to Syria and where chances of war among any number of players are rising, you can hardly blame the typical American for wanting to wish it away. But the 43 percent of U.S. voters who think that America is “too involved” in the Middle East, …

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Stop nuzzling new autocrats in Turkey and Egypt; start pushing freedom and democracy

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The next president must discard two longstanding but problematic pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East and chart a new course that reflects both regional realities and the dynamic changes that are underway there. For decades, presidents have sought to maintain regional stability by propping up pro-Western autocrats and to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict …

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Egypt’s Morsi thumbs his nose at United States

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U.S. foreign aid, which dates back to the early 1950s, is designed to support U.S. national security by helping our friends, pressuring our adversaries, and promoting a safer, more prosperous world. That’s why U.S. aid shifted over the years as our priorities shifted – from winning the Cold War through the 1980s to supporting U.S. …

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Now more than ever, U.S. must side with activists struggling to install democracy

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Recent developments in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere have convinced skeptics that U.S. human rights promotion in the Middle East causes more harm than good by inciting instability – positioning the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-Western forces to win elections or otherwise seize power. The argument has superficial appeal, but it rests on problematic assumptions about …

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