Back in 2003, at the start of America’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, then Major General David Petraeus, commanding the US 101st Airborne Division driving toward Baghdad, famously asked my Washington Post colleague Rick Atkinson: “Tell me how this ends.” That phrase – both a question and a plaintive plea – came to capsulate the entire unplanned…
Impending decisions about U.S. troops in Syria will be the next significant outcome of the continuing tussle, between a president’s urges and his appointees, that constitutes Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Given Trump’s limited attention span and the erratic way in which he allows others to influence his decisions, however, policy on Syria will not necessarily…
President Trump for now has decided to allow about 2,000 US troops to remain in Syria. But the controversy over whether or not to withdraw them is symptomatic of Washington’s lack of overall strategy for the Middle East. This indecisiveness has prompted Trump to warm up further with Saudi Arabia, the same country that helped…
With ISIS on the run in Syria, President Trump this week declared that he intends to make good on his promise to bring the troops home. “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home,” said the president. We’ve gotten “nothing out of the $7 trillion (spent) in the Middle East…
The popular saying that “the dogs bark but the caravan passes” doesn’t apply to Trump’s criticism of the Central American migrant caravan crossing Mexico en route to the US right now, since there’s no way that the President will allow it to pass into his country if he values his political life, but refusing to…
It is said that during the 1990s’ time of troubles in Russia a popular view held that the prevailing chaos and ruin could only be redressed by a leader meeting the description of “Adolf Vissarionovich Pinochet.” (Адольф Виссарионович Пиночет). The composite name of this hypothetical rescuer featured (1) the surname “Pinochet” of the anti-communist Chilean military strongman,…
