It was 60 years ago this week that an uncertain new president launched an ill-conceived military venture of astonishing naivety. The scheme was straightforward and audacious: 1,400 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles would land at the Bay of Pigs and ignite a populist uprising that would topple a Soviet-backed communist revolutionary by the name of Fidel Castro. …
The United States and China show growing signs of entering a long-term cold war, strikingly similar to the U.S.-Soviet cold war of decades past and demanding the same dogged determination that Washington displayed during that earlier conflict to protect its interests and defend its allies. Like the U.S.-Soviet conflict, the Sino-American one is rooted in …
“The investigation,” the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said the other day in announcing her probe of Israeli and Palestinian activity in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, “will cover crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court that are alleged to have been committed . . . since 13 June 2014.” The starting …
Continue reading “Israel Has Good Reason to Be Wary of ICC Probe”
“We’re at an inflection point,” President Joe Biden told the Munich Security Conference the other day, “between those who argue that . . . autocracy is the best way forward” and “those who understand that democracy is essential” to meeting the world’s economic, health, and other challenges. A month into his presidency, Biden seems deeply …
Continue reading “Help Wanted: America Must Resume Its Postwar Role of Promoting Freedom”
“If they want Iran to return to its commitments,” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, declared this week about the 2015 global nuclear agreement, “the United States must lift all sanctions in practice.” Hours later, President Biden told CBS News that he will not lift sanctions until Iran agrees to abide by the agreement’s restrictions on …
Continue reading “Iran nuclear program presents new challenges”
U.S. envoy Richard Mills didn’t say anything particularly surprising the other day when he told the UN Security Council that, to keep the “two-state solution” viable, Israel should refrain from settlement and annexation activity, while the Palestinians should abandon incitement and payments to terrorists. But, as President Joe Biden restores a traditional U.S. approach to …
Continue reading “Peace Problem: Israel Knows How to Capitalize on Its Conflict With Palestinians”
“See how futile and disastrous American democracy is,” Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, told a TV audience in Lebanon the other day. “It lacks the necessary checks, and this is how people like Trump get to power… This exposes the truth about American democracy, which they have tried to spread all over the world.” From Beijing …
Continue reading “Biden should double down on democracy promotion”