Yes, the Taliban Are Terrorists
Diplomacy often obstructs moral clarity. After the Clinton administration launched its high-profile engagement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for example, State Department officials...
View ArticleDrones Should Follow the Threat
The news from the Wall Street Journal that the Obama administration is looking to end drone strikes in Pakistan by 2018–the end of Pakistani leader Nawaz Sharif’s current term in office–is not terribly...
View ArticleAfghanistan and Diplomacy Unhinged
Next week, my new book on the history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and terrorist groups will officially come out. A major theme of the book is that contrary to the statements of many State...
View ArticleNo Moderation from the Monstrous Taliban
One sometimes hears, from those who oppose a continued U.S. role in Afghanistan after 2014, that the Taliban have changed. They have supposedly moderated from the bad old days of the 1990s. Now, we are...
View ArticleAddress, Don’t Deny Religious Component to Boko Haram
News out of Nigeria continues to horrify, as the radical Islamist group Boko Haram refuses to release kidnapped school girls and now threatens to sell them into marriage, slavery, or worse. Boko Haram,...
View ArticleObama’s Split-the-Difference Foreign Policy
Ever since Osama bin Laden’s demise in 2011, President Obama’s foreign policy has been moving in a dovish direction which, to the rest of the world, has looked a lot like an American retreat from its...
View ArticleOnly Five for One? The Bergdahl Swap is Actually Worse Than Israeli Prisoner...
Speaking today on ABC’s This Week National Security Advisor Susan Rice described the homecoming of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl after five years of captivity at the hands of the Taliban as “a joyous day.” No...
View ArticleHow Not to Handle a Prisoner Swap
Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages. Benjamin Netanyahu traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Corporal Gilad Shalit. Ehud Olmert traded five living terrorists–one of them responsible for...
View ArticleCan the White House Be Trusted on Iran Deal?
President Obama’s decision to release five senior Taliban prisoners in exchange for a captive American soldier who, according to numerous media reports, was also a deserter was political malpractice....
View ArticleBergdahl Disgrace Not Like Israel’s Shalit
Did President Obama expect to be showered with praise for his exchange of five senior Taliban terrorists for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl? The president defended the swap today while speaking in...
View ArticleObama’s Dishonorable Deal
Even I, a consistent and at times quite a harsh critic of President Obama, have been taken aback by the latest turn of events. To recapitulate: Mr. Obama released five high-value, high-risk terrorists...
View ArticleBergdahl Starring in Taliban’s PR Blockbuster
A lot has changed in warfare since the days of hand-to-hand combat with swords and spears in ancient Mesopotamia 5,000 years. One thing hasn’t changed, however: War remains a test of wills. If you...
View ArticleThinking Through the Morality of the Bergdahl Deal
I oppose the deal the Obama administration struck to secure the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. People whom I admire have a different reaction, so I thought it might be useful to think through this...
View ArticleKerry’s Implausible Antiterror Assurances
John Kerry reported for duty on the Sunday morning talk shows to defend the Taliban-for-Bowe Bergdahl swap. On CNN he claimed that the U.S. has the ability to closely monitor the five released Taliban...
View ArticleKey to Obama’s Diplomacy? Giving Up
While the Obama administration is ramping up its efforts to defend the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap with the Taliban, criticism of the deal is no longer confined to Washington. As the New York Times...
View ArticleHagel’s Unconvincing Spin
If there is one good aspect of the dismaying advance of Islamist extremists in Iraq from the Obama administration’s standpoint, it is that these events are distracting attention from the continuing...
View ArticleObama’s Retreat and Jihad’s Rise
Back in 2012, the State Department’s “Country Reports on Terrorism” stated that “The loss of bin Laden and these other key operatives puts the [al-Qaeda] network on a path of decline that will be...
View ArticleCould Jordan Fall?
I spoke about the situation in Iraq Saturday morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal. Many callers expressed skepticism at any American involvement in Iraq, arguing simply that no American interests are...
View ArticleISIS Can Win Without Baghdad
I don’t blame President Obama for not rushing to launch symbolic air strikes in Iraq when we don’t have good ground-level intelligence on what targets to hit. But generating that intelligence will...
View ArticleWill Afghanistan Turn the Tables on Pakistan?
Flying into Kabul earlier this week just before Afghanistan’s presidential inauguration, a number of embassy cars sat waiting to pick up VIPs and visitors from their respective nations. It was telling...
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