Patrick J. Buchanan

After the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, Austria got from Kaiser Wilhelm a “blank cheque” to punish Serbia. Germany would follow whatever course its ally chose to take. Austria chose war on Serbia. And World War I resulted. On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in … Continue reading “No More Blank Checks for War”

Of the Axis-of-Evil nations named in his State of the Union in 2002, President Bush has often said, “The United States will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” He failed with North Korea. Will he accept failure in Iran, though there is no hard evidence … Continue reading “Who’s Planning Our Next War?”

Did Hitler’s crimes justify the Allies’ terror-bombing of Germany? Indeed they did, answers Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek response to my new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: “The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities.” … Continue reading “Hitchens Demands an
Eye for an Eye”

“What Would Winston Do?” So asks Newsweek‘s cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all. Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill’s career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power. That … Continue reading “Was the Holocaust Inevitable?”

After losing both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Bill Clinton expostulated: The president of the United States is not irrelevant! On learning his trusted aide from Texas Scott McClellan has denounced as an “unnecessary war” the same Iraq war McClellan defended from the White House podium, George Bush must feel as Clinton did. … Continue reading “Is Bush Becoming Irrelevant?”

“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” wrote Alexander Pope. Daily, our 43rd president testifies to Pope’s point. Addressing the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s birth, Bush said those who say we should negotiate with Iran or Hamas are like the fools who said we should negotiate with Adolf Hitler. “As Nazi tanks … Continue reading “Bush Plays the Hitler Card”

Is war with Iran inevitable, even imminent? Or is peace at hand? From the public diplomacy of the administration, either conclusion may be reached. Consider. “West Offers Iran ‘Refreshed’ Deal,” ran the headline in the May 3 Washington Times. The story described an offer to Iran, agreed to by all five members of the Security … Continue reading “Is It Jaw-Jaw or War-War?”

The neocons may yet get their war on Iran. Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East. Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has “fueled … Continue reading “Petraeus Points to War With Iran”

"Yes, it was a good war," writes Richard Cohen in his column challenging the thesis of pacifist Nicholson Baker in his new book, Human Smoke, that World War II produced more evil than good. Baker’s compelling work, which uses press clips and quotes of Axis and Allied leaders as they plunged into the great cataclysm, … Continue reading “Was WWII Really ‘The Good War’?”

In an echo of Warren Harding’s “A Return to Normalcy” speech of 1920, George Bush last week declared, “Normalcy is returning back to Iraq.” The term seemed a mite ironic. For, as Bush spoke, Iraqis were dying in the hundreds in the bloodiest fighting in months in Basra, the Shia militias of Moqtada al-Sadr were … Continue reading “Should We Fight for South Ossetia?”