When Kim Jong-Il finally test launched a missile this week, I knew it was only a matter of time before some neocon would cry out for the resurrection of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war. Sure enough, reported The Raw Story on Sunday: “Only hours after North Korea launched a rocket, Newt Gingrich was on television saying the United States should … [Read More]

Americans can sleep easier after months of jitters over the decisive issue in U.S. foreign policy. We’ve all been on edge for weeks, but it’s time to take a deep breath and relax; a bright new era has dawned. So when you tuck the kids in tonight, rest assured their future is secure. It’s official—Croatia and Albania have joined NATO. Now … [Read More]

Just two months after the twin towers fell, the armies of the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul. The Taliban fled. The triumph was total in the “splendid little war” that had cost one U.S. casualty. Or so it seemed. Yet, last month, the war against the Taliban entered its eighth year, the second longest war in our history, and America and … [Read More]

A bold terrorist attack on a peaceful city strikes fear, then horror among bystanders, then an entire nation. Gunmen barely out of their teens, sent on a clandestine one-way mission against a hated foe, create a bloody international incident with huge implications. Two neighboring states, long at loggerheads over issues of borders and identity, lurch towards war as a nervous world … [Read More]

Arguably the most successful act of revolutionary terror was the June 1914 assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Believing his mission to murder the heir to the Austrian throne had failed, Gavrilo Princip suddenly found himself standing a few feet away from the royal car. He fired twice, mortally wounding the archduke and his wife. Tactically, that act of … [Read More]

The morning after Barack Obama’s election, the congratulatory message from Moscow was in the chilliest tradition of the Cold War. “I hope for constructive dialogue with you,” said Russia’s president, “based on trust and considering each other’s interests.” Dmitry Medvedev went on that day, in his first State of the Union, to charge America with fomenting the Russia-Georgia war and said … [Read More]

Neoconservatives afraid that a President Obama might even partially live up his promise to remove troops from Iraq have been warming up to the new administration and hedging their bets where they can. Not since Operation Chaos during the primaries have we seen some Republicans so anxious to jump off the “Stop-Hillary Express” and on the Clinton bandwagon. The sort of … [Read More]

Early yesterday morning, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo announced his decision to begin looking into war crimes allegedly committed by Russian and Georgian troops in South Ossetia.  The announcement, though misguided, was appealingly symmetrical .  After all, if overreaching by one international body was partly responsible for this mess (when the United States and Russia compete to prove how … [Read More]

Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia’s invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. Nasser’s blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili’s blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. After … [Read More]

“We have to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in,” says Barack Obama of the U.S. war in Iraq. Wise counsel. But is Barack taking his own advice? For he pledges to shift two U.S. combat brigades, 10,000 troops, out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, raising American forces in that country from 33,000 to 43,000. Why does … [Read More]