Unconventional Wisdom in the Middle East

Recent events across the Middle East put the lie to one of the foreign policy establishment’s most enduring tenets of conventional nonsense: that Israeli-Palestinian peace is key to greater regional peace and stability. Sharing concerns over hegemony-seeking Iran and radical Islamic forces like the Islamic State group and Muslim Brotherhood, the key Arab states of …

Israel’s survival depends on destroying Hamas’ ability to terrorize

WASHINGTON – Though Israel should never carelessly ignore U.S. pressure, it nevertheless must resist current U.S. efforts to impose a cease-fire on the Israel-Hamas conflict while Israel remains besieged by rockets and tunnels. To be sure, the United States has provided Israel with vital military, economic and diplomatic support since its founding after World War …

Alaa Al Aswany: The Grey Lady’s Troubling New Columnist

The New York Times didn’t know or didn’t care that one of its new high-profile “contributing opinion writers” has long displayed a relentless hostility to Israel and posited startling conspiracy theories about “Zionist” power. The revelations about the best-selling Egyptian novelist and activist Alaa Al Aswany, as highlighted in news reports of recent days, raise …

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

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, …

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

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 …