Arthur Vandenberg, the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who worked closely with President Truman to architect the free world in the late 1940s, died 65 years ago on Monday. His legacy offers two important lessons for us during our current time of turmoil at home and abroad. First, we have benefited greatly from the …
Continue reading “Robust Foreign Policy Possible, Even in Partisan Times”
Nearly 60 years ago, with the Soviet Union emerging as America’s new post-World War II adversary, a nervous Washington sought the insights of a Soviet expert serving as the second-ranking U.S. official in Moscow. It was February of 1946, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had just delivered a blistering speech at the Bolshoi Theater, suggesting …
Continue reading “We Can’t Forget That Putin Is a Product of the KGB”
Like the optimistic boy in Ronald Reagan’s charming quip who searches through pile-high manure in hopes of finding a pony, the Obama administration continues trying to entice the cooperation of Iran on regional issues even in the face of its growing hostility toward the United States. In his latest gambit on this front, President Barack …
“I want Russia to be successful,” President Barack Obama told reporters on Friday after chastising Vladimir Putin for his stepped-up militarism in Syria. “This is not a contest between the United States and Russia. It is in our interest for Russia to be a responsible, effective actor on the international stage that can share burdens …
“We need to get to the negotiation,” Secretary of State John Kerry said of efforts to convince Syria’s Bashar Assad to step down. “That’s what we’re looking for, and we hope Russia and Iran, [and] other countries with influence, will help to bring that about, because that’s what’s preventing this crisis from ending.” Oh my. …
“We who defeated the Israelis will also defeat the terrorists,” a Hezbollah fighter in Syria told the New York Times the other day, referring to Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in the early 1980s. “And we will take Jerusalem.” At the moment, Hezbollah is bogged down in Syria, with thousands of fighters seeking to defeat both …
The growing concerns of Arab nations over an emerging Iran nuclear deal and their reported desire for U.S. weapons to protect themselves are the unfortunate outgrowths of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy realism. To oversimplify a bit, U.S. foreign policy in the post-World War II period has revolved around the competing doctrines of idealism and …