Yes, it’s up for this year’s “Best Picture” Oscar, but that hasn’t stopped critics delivering decidedly mixed reviews to “1917.”
Read MoreCommentary: Why ‘1917’ Is Such a Good Movie
Tag: foreign policy
Commentary: The Benefits of Trump’s ‘Transactional’ Foreign Policy
The recent drone attack that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and a Shiite militia leader in Iraq led predictably to a retaliatory strike by Iran. Twenty or so ballistic missiles were launched at bases in Iraq where U.S. troops were housed. Fortunately, no one was killed.
Read MoreCommentary: Listen to Trump, Not Democrats on Foreign Policy Matters
The predicted has happened in Iran and more quickly than had been expected. On the evening of the day on which the Iranian authorities managed to bungle the funeral of their late terrorist chief, Qasem Soleimani, at least 50 people were trampled to death in their grief, and the crisis over the supposed escalation of hostilities subsided. (At least, unlike during the funeral of the Iranian theocracy’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the coffin did not fly open, spilling the corpse on the mourners.)
Read MoreUS Imposes New Sanctions on Iran
WASHINGTON – The U.S. placed more sanctions on Iran Friday in response to its missile attack on U.S. military troops in Iraq last week, and it threatened further action to weaken Iran’s economy if Tehran continues to carry out what it considers terrorist actions.
Read MoreCommentary: Sorry Democrats, There Is a Trump Doctrine, And It’s a Good One
For the Democrats, the killing of Iranian terrorist General Qassem Soleimani offered a great opportunity to tout the risk of having Donald Trump as commander in chief, and they were, as usual, extremely disciplined in maintaining that narrative.
Read MoreTrump De-escalates: Says ‘Iran Appears to be Standing Down,’ U.S. ‘Ready to Embrace Peace’
President Trump made it abundantly clear in his address to the nation Wednesday morning that Iran’s free reign of terror throughout the Middle East was over, but the United States would not be retaliating militarily against the Islamic Republic following their missile strikes on two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.
Read MoreCommentary: War With Iran?
Does the U.S. armed forces’ killing of Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign wing, and his subordinate, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, outside Baghdad’s airport increase or decrease the chances of war with Iran? Does it mean a continuation of our disastrous endless wars?
Read MoreThe Battleground State Report: Trump’s Unpredictability Is a Game Changer Both Foreign and Domestic
During a live recording on Friday’s Battleground State Report with Michael Patrick Leahy and Doug Kellett – a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of national weekend syndication rollout – with Kellett out of the studio, Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star Report’s all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the show.
Read MoreIranian-backed Protesters Withdraw From US Embassy Compound in Baghdad
Iranian-backed paramilitary groups protesting U.S. air strikes in Iraq withdrew from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday after a second day of protests, even as Tehran and Washington traded threats.
Read MoreUS Immediately Sending More Troops to Mideast
The Pentagon is immediately sending 750 more troops to the Middle East after pro-Iranian protesters tried to storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday.
Read MoreCommentary: Five Predictions for Foreign Policy in 2020
In the world of foreign policy, no one knows the future. Certainly not me. But trends can be spotted, and their trajectories predicted.
Read MoreCommentary: Trump Saves NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization turns 70 this year. NATO is an old man looking for a mission and befuddled by the fact that only nine of its 29 member states pay their agreed dues—up from five last year, thanks to President Trump’s pestering. Not that he gets any credit for it.
Read MoreSouth Korea, US Fail to Strike Defense Cost-Sharing Deal
SEOUL – The United States and South Korea failed to reach a defense cost-sharing agreement after holding a fourth round of talks this week.
Read MoreCommentary: Beware of Washington’s Foreign Policy Establishment Globalist Agenda
Beware of the blob.
Read MoreCommentary: Neglect of Foreign Policy Led to the Deep State
Questions of foreign policy, particularly those of war and peace, are among the most critical in politics. A lost war can destroy an empire and erase a nation. Victory can attain safety, security, and prosperity for many generations. An inconclusive campaign—such as our neverending stalemate in Afghanistan—can sap national confidence and shatter the minds and bodies of a generation of veterans.
Read MoreCommentary: D.C. Establishment Wants to Remove Trump Because He Wants to End the Endless Wars
It is fitting that the Washington, D.C. establishment wants President Donald Trump removed from office for considering withholding military assistance to Ukraine, or that the talk of impeachment intensified as Trump was announcing the U.S. military withdrawal from Syria, for it was that type of caution in the use of military force that helped Trump get elected in the first place in 2016.
Read MoreCommentary: ‘Orange Man Bad’ Becomes Foreign Policy
Have you noticed an uptick in the appearance of a specific talking point from the political and military elite about President Trump’s recent drawdown in northern Syria? It goes something like this: Yes, the president was in a tight spot in Syria – caught between Turkey, a NATO ally, and the Kurds, who we were allied with against ISIS. But the president was wrong to pull U.S. forces out of northern Syria the way he did. Very often, these detractors say the president ordered the precipitous drawdown of U.S. forces in Syria without “consulting the Pentagon.”
Read MoreCommentary: National Security Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings
Ben Shapiro has become famous for the line: “Facts don’t care about your feelings!” Neither does strategy. And the last week should serve as a lesson in how to do strategy properly, and how to serve the national interest: clinically and without emotion.
Read MoreRand Paul: Pulling US Troops From Syria ‘May Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to the Kurds’
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued Wednesday that pulling the remaining U.S. troops from northern Syria “may be the best thing that ever happened to the Kurds.”
Read MoreCommentary: Lindsey Graham Gets the Kurds and Syria Backwards
“We can’t abandon the Kurds now,” said Senator Lindsey Graham during a recent appearance on Fox & Friends. “When Turkey goes into Syria, they’re not going in to fight ISIS. They’re going in to kill the Kurds because in their eyes they’re more of a threat to Turkey than ISIS,” the South Carolina Republican said on “Fox & Friends. According to reporting by William Cummings for USA TODAY Graham added that “every military person” has told Trump not to pull the troops out.
Read MoreTurkey Launches Military Offensive in Northern Syria as US Troops Leave the Region
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Wednesday that the Turkish Armed Forces will lead a military offensive in northern Syria against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters.
Read MoreCommentary: Amid Facile Reports of Chaos, Prudent U.S. Strategy Emerges
Almost imperceptibly, as political discourse continues to be a discordant contest between haters and admirers of President Trump with no journalistic distinction between comment and reporting, there has been substantial progress toward an improved strategic environment for the United States and the West generally.
Read MoreCommentary: Trump Shows Value of Tariffs as Foreign Policy Tool
by Christopher Roach The great American foreign policy debate began with the two parties’ divide over Vietnam. Until the Vietnam War, Republicans and Democrats more or less held to a consensus on the value of containment. After the war, Republicans favored unilateralism, a strong military, and clear-sighted pursuit of…
Read MoreCommentary: America’s Defense Establishment Appears Too Big to Succeed
by Brandon J. Weichert The United States has a problem: It has a military-industrial complex built on assumptions about international security dating from the last century. Despite maintaining a larger defense budget than the next 10 countries behind it, the United States has been painfully slow to respond to…
Read MoreCommentary: Switzerland’s Foreign Policy Should Be a Model for America
by Brandon J. Weichert As I have written previously, many elites think of the United States as being in a position similar to that of the vulnerable Hapsburg Empire: a large empire possessing indefensible frontiers. But, this comparison flawed. In fact, a more precise analog to the United States is…
Read MoreCommentary: Retreat, Regroup, and Reinvest in a Realist Foreign Policy
by Christopher Roach Donald Trump’s administration has allowed the United States to renegotiate its orientation to the rest of the world. Partisans have sniped in contradictory ways, criticizing him both as a warmonger and a naïve peacenik, but they rarely offer thoughtful alternatives to the course Trump has taken.…
Read MoreLast Defenders of Islamic State’s Caliphate Surrounded
by Jeff Seldin The last defenders of the Islamic State terror group’s self-proclaimed caliphate are surrounded in a small neighborhood in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, facing imminent defeat. The assessment Saturday, from a commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, follows days of slow and difficult fighting…
Read MoreTrump Plans to Declare ‘100 Percent’ Victory Over Islamic State Caliphate
by Jeff Seldin U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he expected to formally declare victory over the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate in the next week. “Nobody thought it was possible to do it this quickly,” Trump told members of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic…
Read MoreHouse Votes Overwhelmingly to Prohibit Exit From NATO
The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a bill affirming congressional support for NATO, amid renewed concerns over President Donald Trump’s commitment to the 29-member alliance. The bipartisan NATO Support Act, which forbids the use of funds to withdraw from the alliance and states that it is U.S. policy to…
Read MoreCommentary: Better Ways to Fight Extremism in Syria Than Endless War
by Austin Mulka Yesterday I posted a status in unequivocal support of President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of Syria. The post elicited the abhorrent wails of the president’s purported supporters, one of whom denounced me as a supporter of “child killers.” As baseless as the claim was,…
Read MoreCommentary: The ‘Trump Doctrine’ is the Future of Conservative Foreign Policy
by John Fonte For the past two years we have seen the emergence of a coherent Trump doctrine in both words and deeds. There is a remarkable consistency throughout all of President Trump’s speeches, formal documents (such as the National Security Strategy) and actions of the administration. To understand…
Read MoreIsraeli Soccer Team Adding ‘Trump’ To Name To Celebrate Embassy Move
by Peter Hasson An Israeli soccer team is adding “Trump” to its name in celebration of President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the team announced on Sunday. Beitar Jerusalem, will now be known as “Beitar Trump Jerusalem,” according to a statement the…
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