Can we expect any major departures in foreign policy during President Obama’s second term? Probably not. Despite claims to the contrary by supporters and opponents alike, Obama’s first-term foreign policy was fairly conventional. Indeed, much of it was marked by… Continue Reading
Can countries make New Year’s resolutions? Probably not. But if they could, here’s one for the United States: Avoid unnecessary and costly wars. We have just emerged from our most recent round of governmental dysfunction: the farce known as the… Continue Reading
The conflict in Korea is often called “The Forgotten War.” It ended with neither a clear-cut victory, like World II, nor a painfully obvious defeat, like Vietnam. It ground, instead, to an uneasy stalemate that left 35,000 Americans dead. Well, we have a new forgotten war. This one is in Afghanistan, where Americans continue to fight over a decade after we first invaded. They continue to die, too: the death toll this year is already over 300. But the war in Afghanistan hardly registers with the public: it is old news. Continue Reading
I suspect that in 50 years we will look back upon the current controversy over gay marriage with chagrin and shame: chagrin because same-sex unions will have become, by then, utterly matter-of-fact; shame because discrimination against homosexual couples will be generally recognized as an egregious breach of equality under law and simple human decency. Continue Reading
We are now approaching the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, which occurred on March 19, 2003. There has been, to date, little press coverage of the occasion. This is hardly surprising. The recently concluded presidential campaign consumed the U.S. media for the better part of six months. And talks in Washington over the “fiscal cliff” — a combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that many claim will plunge our economy back into recession — has taken center stage. Abroad, other events — the intensifying civil war in Syria, the outbreak of violence in Gaza, the ongoing efforts by the United States and its allies to halt Iran’s nuclear program, the uproar (at least here and in Israel) over Palestinian recognition at the United Nations — have dominated the news … The late Gore Vidal used to call our country “The United States of Amnesia,” because of our tendency to forget the past when it is too unpleasant or inconvenient. But we should not let the anniversary of the Iraq War pass without serious soul-searching. The reasons are three-fold. Continue Reading
I have a confession to make: I didn’t watch the two first presidential debates live. I did read the transcripts. And, in the case of the first debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney, I looked at a recording of the debate a few days later, just to confirm that Obama’s performance was as poor as I had heard. (It was.) Needless to say, I gave the vice-presidential debate a pass. (I’m with John Nance Garner on the vice presidency. It isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. And I’m not interested in grown men spitting.) I broke my streak by watching Monday’s presidential debate because it was on my own area of interest, foreign policy. Continue Reading
This intellectual malady is named after Pauline Kael, for over 20 years the film critic of the New Yorker magazine. In 1972, after Richard Nixon swept to reelection in one of the biggest landslides in American history, she reportedly (though… Continue Reading