( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Before Obama took office, Israel viciously assaulted the Gaza Strip. As Trump gets the boot, could another gambit be in the works? The political scientist William Adler recently argued that the main risk of our current lame duck period is inaction, rather than action. So far as the United […]
America’s Wars always Come Home
( Foreign Policy in Focus) – It was entirely fitting that Senator Tom Cotton would be the one to say the quiet part out loud — very loud — in the New York Times. Usually, Cotton specializes in inciting war against black and brown people in other parts of the world. He does so with […]
Why Did Our National Security State Fail on our Health Security?
(Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Between 1978 and 2018, American presidents declared 58 national emergencies. Their targets ranged from “Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process” and “Transactions with Significant Narcotics Traffickers” to “the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels with Respect to Cuba” and “Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or […]
The War Powers Act isn’t Restraining the President: Congress Must de-Fund Wars
(Foreign Policy in Focus) – By any measure, the War Powers Act has failed to constrain presidential warmaking. A simpler step would be to stop funding wars. Practically speaking, the Trump administration’s extrajudicial assassination of a top Iranian general was probably legal. The rationale is straightforward: Congress has steadily settled on a constitutionally dubious theory […]
Those Calling for a Domestic War on White Nationalist Terrorism should Beware Federal Heavy-Handedness
( FPIF) – Although its precise scale is hard to measure, violent white supremacy is clearly a problem in the United States. From El Paso to Pittsburgh, the fears and fantasies of an immigrant invasion, a liberal Jewish betrayal, and a righteous race war have motivated surgically targeted slaughter. With law enforcement — especially the […]
Israel’s Everyday Economic Violence Toward Palestinians in Gaza
We cannot wait for the next massacre to call out the insidious economic violence being waged on Palestinians