Ivan Eland

Recently, the U.S. government has been dealt setbacks in five of the seven developing, Islamic countries in which its military recently has attacked or invaded since 9/11 – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen. In the other two countries, Pakistan and Somalia, the situation remains extremely unstable. In Syria and Iraq, the brutal ISIS group, … Continue reading “US Intervention Will Only Make Middle Eastern Turmoil Worse”

Although the 2016 election is a year-and-a-half away, the verdict is already in on the continuation of post-World War II interventionism as the policy of choice. After the hysteria in the media induced by ISIS’s beheading of a few Americans in retaliation for U.S. bombing of the group in the Middle East, American public sentiment, … Continue reading “Likely the Same Overextended American Empire From the Next President”

Recently making the news was the successful attempt by President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the G-7 summit in Germany, to get all seven industrialized nations to continue economic sanctions on Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea and military meddling in eastern Ukraine, as did the recent U.S.-led allied boycott … Continue reading “Do the Russians Have a Perspective on G-7 Sanctions?”

Many Americans have been heard to mimic the media’s disdain for partisan gridlock in Washington, but because Congress and the president often do the wrong thing, it’s often better when nothing is done. For example, after the Congress’s inaction recently allowed sections of the Patriot Act to lapse, I was so ecstatic about my newfound … Continue reading “Temporary Freedom From the Patriot Act”

In Washington, a town in which most people, both government and non-government employees, are involved, one way or another, in public relations spin, the thing that will get you in the most trouble is telling the simple truth. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter recently stepped in it by stating what should have been obvious to … Continue reading “Hard Truths About Iraq”

President Barack Obama was recently snubbed by Persian Gulf Arab leaders at a summit he threw at Camp David to pay them off for the impending U.S.-led nuclear agreement with Iran!  By staying away and playing hard to get, the heads of four of the six Gulf States, including King Salman of Saudi Arabia, were … Continue reading “Tell the Persian Gulf States to ‘Go Fish’”

Although many in the United Kingdom thought that the Conservative Party would ultimately lose control of the government to a coalition of the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party in the recent election, Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservatives won an outright majority of seats in parliament and will be stronger than in … Continue reading “What America Should Learn From the British Election”

In the new book, The Great War of Our Time, Michael J. Morell, former Deputy Director of the CIA, exonerates former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (now National Security Adviser) Susan Rice of skullduggery in dealing with the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, which led … Continue reading “Benghazi Is a Dead End for Republicans”

The tragic irony of the recent rioting in Baltimore, after alleged police brutality on an African American man is that the violence is a legacy of the American Civil War, which had its first violent deaths in the same location 154 years before. Some of the rioting occurred near Camden Yards, which now is a … Continue reading “War Rarely Enhances Freedom”

Apparently, Dick Cheney is not the only one who thinks the president has ceded too much of his power since the 1970s and has become too week vis-à-vis the other two branches of American government. Now on the other end of the political spectrum, Steven Rattner, a Wall Street executive and former Obama Treasury Department … Continue reading “Congress’s Pathetic Charade on the Iranian Nuclear Agreement”