Category: Foreign Policy

America’s Lost Tradition on Non-Intervention

By implicitly criticizing U.S. interventionism, President Trump’s inaugural speech drew denunciations from the Washington establishment as a dangerous deviation, but his message actually fit with U.S. traditions, says Ivan Eland.

What Trump’s ‘Great Wall’ Misses

President Trump’s “Great Wall” ignores a key reason why desperate Mexicans and Central Americans flee north – the history of U.S. military and economic intervention that has created poverty and repression, notes William Blum.

How US Believes Impossible Things

Over many decades, the U.S. establishment has become practiced at putting out claims that are completely false or that leave out key details to mislead the public, but now come complaints about “fake news,” observes William Blum.

Steering Trump Back to Endless War

Exclusive: President Trump’s chaotic first two weeks have seen senior aides reverse his most promising plans for restoring realism to U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding Russia and the Mideast, reports Daniel Lazare.

Trump Schooled on Separation of Powers

President Trump is getting a crash course on the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers as federal courts knock down his temporary immigration ban aimed at seven mostly Muslim countries, reports Marjorie Cohn at The Jurist.

The Double Standard on Yemen’s Suffering

The Trump administration condemns Iran as somehow responsible for a Yemeni rebel group’s attack on a Saudi warship, but ignores the Saudi-inflicted bloodbath on the Yemeni people, as Gareth Porter explained to Dennis J Bernstein.

Trump Bends to Neocon Pressures

Exclusive: President Trump’s calls for reorienting American foreign policy look to be disintegrating in his first two weeks in office as he embraces the neoconservative hostilities toward Iran and Russia, as Andrew Spannaus notes.

A Reprise of the Iraq-WMD Fiasco?

Exclusive: Official Washington’s new “group think” – accepting evidence-free charges that Russia “hacked the U.S. election” – has troubling parallels to the Iraq-WMD certainty, often from the same people, writes James W Carden.

Trump’s Iran-Bashing Distraction

Like other U.S. presidents, Donald Trump is falling in line behind the Israeli-Saudi fiction that Iran is the principal source for world terrorism and regional disorder, a dangerous turn, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

Trump Veers Off Course with Iran Threats

The Trump administration has veered into dangerous territory with its threats against Iran, a threat to President Trump’s larger vision of a revamped international order, reports ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.