Making America Rogue Again
If Trump and Pompeo really want to de-escalate, that means not only backing off from more provocative and deadly kinetic acts; it also means backing off from the economic warfare that started the destructive cycle.
If Trump and Pompeo really want to de-escalate, that means not only backing off from more provocative and deadly kinetic acts; it also means backing off from the economic warfare that started the destructive cycle.
Would Trump ever assassinate a Chinese military leader?
Congress had the chance to repeal the law authorizing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Team Trump is now using it as legal justification for killing Soleimani.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed President Obama for starting a war with Iran.
This latest act of “foreign policy by assassination” will be largely rejected by most in the world. Only a few craven Gulf kings and princes—and Israel—will applaud it.
The outlines of the blowback are already taking shape as the Iraqi government, even some neutral and anti-Iran factions, have condemned the attack as, at the very least, an insult to the sovereignty of their country.
U.S. officials privy to the intelligence Trump used to determine a purported “imminent” threat from Iran say the evidence was “razor thin.”
The latest developments in Iraq and the greater Middle East illustrate the flaws in a piecemeal, unrealistic, and excessively military-reliant U.S. strategy.
Washington’s decision on December 29 to bomb the Iraqi militia sites along the Iraqi-Syrian border threw a hand-grenade into that chaotic, but strongly anti-Iranian, political maelstrom.
This week’s U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have converted what had been a story of popular protests with an anti-Iran tinge into a story of strongly anti-U.S. protests.
The consequences of the U.S. attack on Iraqi Shiite militia group Kataib Hezbollah far outweigh whatever short sighted benefits the Trump administration is claiming.
As the Middle East bids farewell to 2019 and welcomes the new year, the peoples of the region have precious […]