Crunch Time in Pakistan
August 26, 2018
It’s crunch time in Pakistan. Resolving Pakistan’s financial crisis is likely to require newly appointed prime minister Imran Khan to not only accept an International Monetary Fund (IMF) straightjacke…
Day: August 26, 2018
After a Long While, China’s Cavalry Is Finally Coming to Syria
August 26, 2018
The relationship between China and Syria goes a long way back. Until the moment when the Syrian war broke out in 2011, Beijing was trying to tap into Syrian markets by becoming its largest importer. C…
Bolton Calls on Al-Qaeda to Stage More Chemical Attacks in Syria
August 26, 2018
In a move that was entirely predictable, the US administration is once again threatening to bomb Syria if there is a “chemical weapons attack”. This was entirely predictable because that chemical atta…
Why Today’s Britain Is a Gangster State
August 26, 2018
Max Weber defined a key attribute of a state as holding the monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence within a given territory. For anybody other than the state to use substantive physical force…
How America’s Wars Have Created Piles of Debt (And Little Strategic Benefit)
August 26, 2018
When Defense Secretary James N. Mattis spoke at the 2018 Center for the National Interest Distinguished Service Award dinner in late July, he outlined a foreign policy strategy for the United States t…
The Lion of Judah’s Last Roar
August 26, 2018
“If you don’t get my weekly column, it means I am dead,” wrote Israeli writer Uri Avnery to a friend. As I eagerly awaited Uri’s column each week, I feared that each new column might be his last. And …
Stabilizing Ethiopia’s Somali Region Is a Step Towards a National Renaissance
August 26, 2018
Federal forces intervened in this geographically expansive but sparsely populated region last week in order to restore law and order there after the state’s government challenged the central authoriti…
Do Democrats Want an Impeachment Fight?
August 26, 2018
"If anyone is looking for a good lawyer," said President Donald Trump ruefully, "I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen." Michael Cohen is no Roy Cohn. Tuesday, T…