(CNN) – Desperately pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran, scrapping old positions and offering new concessions at a mind-boggling pace, the Obama administration has lost sight of what this regime represents and why the United States and its allies have focused on its nuclear program to begin with. For more than a decade, U.S. leaders …
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist,” German pastor Martin Niemöller famously observed about his nation’s intellectuals during the Nazi rise to power. “Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade …
WASHINGTON – Though they preside over the world’s most important nation, our leaders in Washington can be startlingly oblivious to the audiences beyond our shores that watch and listen closely to whatever we say or do. That’s the only rational explanation for why – 13 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – …
Continue reading “CIA report encourages terrorists, makes allies reluctant to help”
My fellow Americans: I want to speak with you tonight about an issue of vital national security, and that’s the challenge presented by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – the radical terrorist organization that has seized a vast amount of territory in those countries, and that has threatened to attack the United States. …
Continue reading “What Obama Should Tell America (But Likely Won’t)”
WASHINGTON – U.S. counterterrorism policy revolves around efforts to prevent the creation of terrorist safe havens, such as the one al-Qaida enjoyed in Afghanistan, that enable terrorists to attack the West. That’s why U.S. officials worry about “failed states” in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, and why U.S. forces launch drone strikes on the …
Continue reading “U.S. can’t allow an active new terrorist state to menace global security”
In the messy aftermaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, critics of U.S. interventionism abroad have exerted great influence over the direction of U.S. foreign policy, putting interventionists on the defensive. The anti-interventionist ascendancy has clearly influenced U.S. policymaking toward Iran (where President Obama seems determined, at all costs, to avoid military action in response to Tehran’s …
Continue reading “Non-intervention facilitated a victory for tyrants and terrorists in Syria”
President Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy, which he unveiled last week in a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, is less off-base than incomplete, reflecting his effort to limit the scope of the problem and the requirements of the response in ways that will prove inadequate to the challenge. In nearly 7,000 words, Obama expressed ambivalence …