The Benghazi “scandal” has enabled congressional Republicans to keep their “base” worked up to a fever pitch, but the hyping of the controversy beyond all reason is doing real harm to U.S. national security by distracting officials from actual foreign policy problems, according…
Tag: Paul R. Pillar
Unleashing Dogs of Aggressive War
After World War II, U.S. prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunals deemed aggressive war the “supreme international crime” because it unpacked all the other evils of war. But Official Washington now treats U.S. invasions of “enemy” states as a topic for casual…
China Tip-Toes into Mideast Peace
The pro-Israel lobby has been so effective dominating U.S. policy toward the Middle East that the success, paradoxically, has made Washington increasingly irrelevant to the peace process. That has created a vacuum that China and other nations may try to…
Festering Injustice in Bahrain
Over the past two years of Arab unrest, only in Bahrain did a neighboring country (Saudi Arabia) invade militarily to put down a popular uprising and did so without U.S. outrage because Bahrain is home to the Fifth Fleet. But…
In Case You Missed…
Some of our special stories from April focused on the Boston Marathon bombings, the defeat of gun-sanity legislation, the latest research on the historical Jesus, and the political rehabilitation of George W. Bush.
The Danger from Conventional Wisdom
Official Washington’s “conventional wisdom” is a pernicious fact of life in the U.S. capital as various presumed realities reverberate through the echo chamber of policymakers and journalists. Conventional wisdom is especially dangerous when what-everybody-knows-is-true isn’t, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…
A Lebanon Echo in Syrian War
Three decades ago, the Reagan administration followed Israel into the middle of the Lebanon civil war with disastrous results, including the deaths of 241 U.S. servicemen and a U.S. withdrawal. Now, the Obama administration faces a similar choice regarding the…
A Political Edge from Guantanamo
Though many of today’s domestic and international crises date back to George W. Bush’s presidency, Republicans see a political edge in frustrating President Obama’s efforts to solve them, reveling in a new narrative about Obama’s “weakness.” The Guantanamo mess is…
An Excuse for Syrian ‘Regime Change’?
Across Official Washington including the neocon Washington Post and “liberal” MSNBC pundits are demanding U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war. But the furor over alleged use of chemical weapons represents just the latest dubious argument for regime change, says ex-CIA analyst…
Forever Pounding the War Drum
Official Washington’s “tough-guy-ism” eschewing diplomacy in favor of military force has slammed the United States into a series of foreign-policy disasters, such as the Iraq War. But key promoters keep denouncing anyone favoring less aggression as an “isolationist,” as ex-CIA analyst…