US Foreign Policy

(Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Trump’s not bringing the troops home. He’s been haphazardly deploying more troops, drones, and dollars abroad, while waging a shadow foreign policy for his own benefit. Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless U.S. wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes […]

Donald Trump

Trump Talks tough with Journalists but Lets Real Strongmen like Turkey’s Erdogan Walk all over Him

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last week during the visit of the Finnish president, Trump acted out with a journalist, James Mason of Reuters who asked him a simple question. What exactly did Trump want from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky during the notorious July telephone call? Trump did a bad de Niro impression, asking him, […]

Donald Trump

Is Turkey planning an attack on Syrian Kurds?

Reese Erlich

ISTANBUL —The Turkish government plans to use Syrian refugees to displace the local Kurdish population in northern Syria. But so far, the scheme isn’t working so well. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayep Erdoğan announced his intention to settle up to two million refugees now living in Turkey into northern Syria. “We aim to accelerate […]

Pentagon

America now solves problems with troops, not diplomats

The Conversation

By Monica Duffy Toft | – Is America a bully? As a scholar, under the auspices of the Military Intervention Project, I have been studying every episode of U.S. military intervention from 1776 to 2017. Historically, the U.S. advanced from a position of isolationism to one of reluctant intervenor, to global policeman. Based on my […]

Donald Trump

Pompeo, Complicit in Ukraine Call, hides behind the State Department he Persecuted in Benghazi Conspiracy Theory

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Kansas oil man in the back pocket of Koch Industries and a mealy-mouthed convert to High Trumpism, issued a shot across the bow of Congress on Tuesday. He sent a letter, which he also tweeted, in which he tried to take cover behind the […]

Ukraine

Ukraine gave up its Nukes for a US Security Pledge; Then Trump Muscled Zelensky by Cutting Mil. Aide

William H. Espinosa

(Informed Comment) – In the coverage of the current scandal, no one seems to be writing about the national security debt the US (and others) owes the Ukraine. Large numbers of missiles and nuclear weapons infrastructure were located in the Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. In fact, for a while, […]

Afghanistan

Why Afghanistan peace is key to rebuilding relations between the US and Pakistan

The Conversation

By Scott Lucas and Umer Karim | – At times, the press conference in the White House was surreal. While Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, looked on, Donald Trump said he could “kill 10m people” in Afghanistan to “win a war within a week”, but had decided not to. And the US president said he […]

Donald Trump

Don’t Expect Trump to do a North Korean-style Pivot in his Relations with Iran

John Feffer

Originally published in Hankyoreh. (Foreign Policy in Focus ) – It was not very long ago that Donald Trump was calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” and threatening to rain “fire and fury” down on North Korea. In response, Kim called Trump a “dotard” and promised an equally fiery attack on […]

Donald Trump

The ‘inept’ Mr Trump – and the Lost Art of the Diplomatic Cable

Brian Whitaker

(Al-Bab.com) – The point of diplomatic cables, and the cause of excitement when they are leaked, is that they are meant to be private – from which we might assume they contain information that is not generally known and is perhaps too interesting to be shared with the public. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with […]