For years, Americans have made one thing very clear: They want no part of overseas conflicts. In Iraq, that long-standing aversion is being put to the test. President Obama’s authorization late Thursday for airstrikes and humanitarian aid in Iraq will undoubtedly bring back a host of emotions for Americans, whose […] Read more »
AP-GfK poll: Americans ready to close the book on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan
Three in four Americans think history will judge the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as failures, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows that about the same percentage think it was right to pull forces from the two countries. Americans surveyed in last month’s poll were not optimistic about […] Read more »
World of Hurt
The iron fist failed. Then the velvet glove failed. That’s undoubtedly a simplistic verdict on the foreign policy records of the past two presidents, George W. (“iron fist”) Bush and Barack (“velvet glove”) Obama. But it now appears inevitable that the 2016 foreign policy debate will unfold against a widespread […] Read more »
Crises Cascade and Converge, Testing Obama
… Rarely has a president been confronted with so many seemingly disparate foreign policy crises all at once — in Ukraine, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — but making the current upheaval more complicated for Mr. Obama is the seemingly interlocking nature of them all. Developments in one area, […] Read more »
The limits on presidential leadership
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) demonstrated that he is certainly not qualified to chair the “intelligence” committee, by mindlessly repeating that “the president of the United States is the only person” who can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from aggression several times during a brief interview with […] Read more »
Favorable views of Russia drop following Malaysian airliner crash
Most Americans say Russia is directly or indirectly responsible for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner over eastern Ukraine, and unfavorable opinions of Russia have surged, according to a new national poll. CONT. Paul Steinhauser, CNN Read more »