One might regard the pledges made to Israel and its friends in the United States by aspiring presidential candidates as pro forma and vaguely amusing, but that would be a mistake. Policy commitments, even if they are lightly entered into, are a serious matter with...
Nothing is certain except for death and taxes. But in campaign season, it's awfully predictable that Democratic politicians will do a little chest-thumping about foreign policy. As the 2012 presidential contest approaches, the Obama administration is ratcheting up its...
The world's nuclear powers - both declared and undeclared - have come primarily from Asia: China, India, Pakistan and possibly North Korea. The Middle East was dominated by a single nuclear power - Israel, which has refused to publicly declare its status. But that...
Following the widely reported Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and alarming new reports of civilian deaths in Syria, the White House has issued several findings to the intelligence community authorizing stepped-up covert action...
Scenes from Tehran Tuesday of bearded Iranian youth swarming over the walls of the British embassy evoked memories of the 1979-81 hostage crisis that created the image of Iran as a pariah state. But the incidents vary in ways that are more worrisome for international...
Many people have the misconception that sanctions are an effective means to encourage a change of behavior in another country without war. However, sanctions and blockades are not only acts of war according to international law, they are most often the first step...
It's just as easy for a nuclear disarmament advocate as a hawk to believe that a state such as Iran that has not only established a nuclear energy program but also experimented with nuclear weapons until 2003 is still developing them. Nevertheless, however much Tehran...
For at least the past two decades, political leaders in the United States and Israel have warned that Iran was on the threshold of building a nuclear weapon. From what we've been hearing lately from the media, Iran is once again … on that threshold. Touting thousands...
Is a vote for the Republican Party in 2012 a vote for war? Is a vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich a vote for yet another unfunded war of choice, this time with a nation, Iran, three times as large and populous as Iraq? Mitt says that if elected he will move...
