James Carden

The odious ritual whereby representatives of foreign governments travel to Washington to tell us our business has become so routine it hardly even registers. And, down the years, hosting such rituals has become a (if not the) primary function of Washington’s think tanks which, also to no one’s surprise, draws millions and millions in funding from these … Continue reading “Letter from ThinkTankLand: Foreign Influence in American Politics”

Over the weekend, noting the ongoing opposition to the far-right Israeli regime’s war on the civilians of Gaza, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that: …For them to call for a cease-fire is Putin’s message, Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It’s … Continue reading “Nancy Pelosi’s New Adventures in McCarthyism”

This weekend the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration has drawn up plans for “a sustained military campaign targeting the Houthis in Yemen.” For those who may understandably have lost count, that would make three regional wars the Biden Administration has embroiled us in over the past three years. If nothing else the Biden administration has shown beyond … Continue reading “The Unreality of US Foreign Policy”

The blame game has commenced; America’s Ukraine hawks have met the enemy, and it is us. Informed observers here and abroad acknowledge that the war of attrition between Russia and US- and NATO- funded Ukraine has taken roughly half a million Ukrainian lives, and that, given Russian superiority in manpower and materiel, Kiev would be … Continue reading “Neocons Blame America First”

Reprinted with the author’s permission from the American Committee for US-Russia Accord. Well-heeled and highly credentialed, the proteges of powerful political patrons with ties to New Haven, Cambridge, Oxbridge and corporate America occupy the highest councils of government and advise a sitting US president who, while blessed with long experience as a US Senator, hails from rather less-exalted circumstances than … Continue reading “The Best and The Brightest, Redux”

In a city awash in foreign interests, dual citizens, and intersecting and at times conflicting loyalties, sometimes the most egregious examples are hiding in plain sight. While largely complicit in the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that dictates, among many other things, that we never ever mention that the Long Island-raised editor of the once venerable Atlantic magazine … Continue reading “Tel Aviv’s Man in Washington”

YEREVAN – Over the past month, legacy and social media have been saturated with reports of the Netanyahu regime’s war on Gaza, which is being met with growing calls from the international community to invoke the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Less known, however, is the role the Israeli government has played … Continue reading “Israel’s Other War: Ethnic Cleansing in the South Caucasus”

Surveying the wreckage US foreign policy has wrought from the privileged and comfortable vantage point of Washington, DC, should prompt the surveyor to wonder when exactly did things go so wrong?  Any reasonable list of dates might include April 12, 1945 as the point at which the US began its decades long journey away from reality and onto … Continue reading “US Foreign Policy Has Come Full Circle”

Last week, President Joe Biden (D-Israel) announced he would be nominating longtime Democratic foreign policy fixture Kurt Campbell to become deputy secretary of state, the number two position in the department. Restrainers might be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief that the acting deputy secretary, Victoria Nuland, didn’t get the nod, as many expected. … Continue reading “Kurt Campbell: The Lobbyist As Diplomat”

Now that the White House has come to the conclusion that Bashar al-Assad has indeed employed chemical weapons on a small scale against the Syrian opposition, the questions over what to do next have taken on ever greater urgency. Speaking to CNN recently, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), said that "we should be able to establish … Continue reading “A Syria ‘No-fly Zone’ and Just War Theory”