Ivan Eland

President Obama’s war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is modeled on the U.S. war against Serbia in 1999 to essentially detach its province of Kosovo – in which the United States acted as the air force for the Kosovo Liberation Army group. This model was also used more recently in Libya … Continue reading “Congress Should Vote and Say No to Obama’s New War”

Although President Obama insists that no American military "boots on the ground" will be used to degrade and defeat the radical Islamist group Islamic State (IS) – which is well funded and has captured much heavy military equipment from the Syrian military and U.S. trained and equipped Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga militias – that … Continue reading “Obama’s Hazy Plan To Fight ISIS Is Unlikely To Succeed”

Hawks of both parties have been taking swipes at the "overly cautious" Barack Obama over the many foreign policy "crises" he recently has been trying to juggle. The general line of their analysis is that the world is going to hell, and Obama is doing nothing about it. The denigration has had the effect of … Continue reading “Obama Is No Wimp”

Sometime back, the surprise invasion of northern Iraq by the vicious Islamist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) raised eyebrows in Washington policy-making circles and the American media. However, it took gruesome footage of the beheading of journalist James Foley to throw these foreign policy elites into hysteria. There is no question that … Continue reading “Hysteria About ISIS Is Unnecessary”

Republicans have justifiably criticized President Obama for skirting the constitutional need to obtain legislation for his agenda in issues from climate change to immigration to health care. Although some of this condemnation is political – because Obama has issued fewer executive orders since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s – Obama is almost certain to … Continue reading “Any Nuclear Agreement with Iran Must Have Proper Approval from Congress”

As Iraq faces a governmental crisis and collapses into what looks to be a three-sided civil war, Republicans even other Democrats – members of Congress and potential presidential candidates, such as President Obama’s former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – are alleging that Obama facilitated the rise of the Sunni radical group Islamic State (formerly … Continue reading “Blowback from More Intervention in Iraq”

The stark admission by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Inspector General that the agency had broken into a classified computer network used by its overseers at the Senate Intelligence Committee violates the core principle of separation of powers of governmental branches enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Along with the CIA’s illegal rendition, detention, and torture … Continue reading “An Even Worse Constitutional Scandal Than Iran-Contra and Watergate”

The American foreign policy elite should learn something from the recent humiliating evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Libya – amid the chaos of tribal civil war in that country – but probably won’t. Since World War II, this bipartisan elite has thumbed its nose at the traditional US foreign policy of strategic independence … Continue reading “US Evacuation in Libya Shows Ill Effects of US Interventionism”

Much finger pointing has occurred on the downing of Malaysia flight MH-17 over separatist-held territory in Ukraine. The American media – still reflexively anti-Russian even though the Cold War has been over for almost a quarter century and heaping blame on Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, since even before his annexation of Crimea – … Continue reading “American Hypocrisy in Ukraine”

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, in an apparent attempt to begin to better his abysmal showing in the last round of presidential primaries in 2012, recently attacked the current leader in Republican polls, Rand Paul, on his perceived vulnerability – foreign policy. In the piece "Isolationist Policies Make the Threat of Terrorism Greater" in … Continue reading “Rick Perry Tries To Smear Rand Paul”