By intervening in defense of the Syrian government and then pulling back Russian forces, President Putin has revealed himself to be a foreign policy “realist” who avoids ideological quagmires, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
President Obama has come partially out of the closet as a foreign policy “realist,” but he hesitates in the face of Official Washington’s neocon establishment, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
Official Washington’s neocons, who wanted so much to “bomb-bomb-bomb” Iran, are now sulking as the nuclear agreement isn’t producing the horrors that they predicted, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
A desperate Republican establishment is going all out to stop Donald Trump who has rallied the GOP “base” that the bigwigs have long manipulated and sold out, explains ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has the backing of nearly the entire Democratic foreign policy establishment, taunts Bernie Sanders about his lack of a similar roster, but ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar says what’s more important is the judgment of the…
Obstructionists in Congress continue to play to baseless public fears and harmful prejudices by blocking President Obama’s plan for finally closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, instead making it a modern-day version of Spandau Prison, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
The threats from Turkey and Saudi Arabia to mount a full-scale invasion of Syria create the potential for a modern-day “march of folly” into World War III by drawing NATO and the U.S. into a direct military confrontation with Russia…
The blanket refusal of Senate Republican leaders to consider President Obama’s choice to succeed Justice Scalia reflects a descent of the United States toward the kind of dysfunctional failed state that Washington normally upbraids, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
The Libyan “regime change” of 2011 aggressively promoted by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned a relatively prosperous and secular country into another failed state where terrorism is finding a home, prompting new calls for a Western “whack-a-mole” intervention, as…
Neocon-dominated Official Washington is in freak-out mode about the success of the Russian-backed Syrian army around Aleppo, reviving long-discredited claims about “moderate” rebels and ignoring Al Qaeda’s key presence. This neocon frenzy also demands a new Cold War, as ex-CIA analyst Paul…