In the late 1960s and early '70s, then US President Richard Nixon appealed to the country's "Silent Majority" to oppose growing anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the United States. A decade later, President Ronald Reagan had the Rev. Jerry Falwell's "Moral...
US Evangelicals at Odds on Embracing Israel
It was business as usual during Christians United for Israel's recent "Israel Summit," its highly-publicized second summer sojourn to Washington. There were thousands of supporters in attendance, including an impressive array of Republican Party elected...
Wolfowitz: Return to Sender?
Recently forced out as president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, one of the primary architects of U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq war, is heading back to familiar surroundings. And the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the United...
Holy Warriors Set Sights
on Iran
Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Christian right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organizing forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign policy table. At the same time, their...
Is It the PR, or the Policy?
In a recent speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared that, "The enemy is so much better at communicating. I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of things they say – all of which are...
Christian Right Steps Up Pro-Israel Lobbying
Over the past two decades, as the Christian Right has grown in political power in the United States, there has been a parallel growth in support for Israel. Organizations made up of conservative evangelical and Jewish leaders have been founded, and millions of dollars...
Bringing on ‘World War III’
If you thought that a global conflagration on the order of a World War was more the stuff of Biblical prophecy, science fiction and apocalyptic end-times novels, think again. For years, U.S. neoconservatives have been ratcheting up the rhetoric – mostly in small...
Iran War Drumbeat Has a Familiar Rhythm
The drumbeat in some Washington foreign policy circles for "regime change" in Iran has striking similarities to the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and is being led by some of the usual suspects – like the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen....
Evangelicals Rally Their Flocks Behind Israel
Charismatic televangelist John Hagee thinks that the Rev. Pat Robertson's suggestion that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was payback from God for withdrawing from Gaza was "insensitive and unnecessary." But he nevertheless appears to share Robertson's...
White House Reaffirms ‘First Strike’ Doctrine
U.S. Pres. George W. Bush issued his second-term National Security Strategy Thursday, a document outlining the administration's strategy for using diplomatic, economic, and military tools to deal with global challenges. Ironically, the 47-page document that outlines a...