President Trump recently ordered and then called off a retaliatory strike against Iran for destroying a U.S. surveillance drone. The U.S. asserts that the drone was operating in international space. Iran claims it was in Iranian airspace. Antiwar critics of Trump's Jacksonian rhetoric turned on a dime to blast him as a weak, vacillating leader afraid…

In May 2018, the Donald Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S. then ramped up sanctions on the Iranian theocracy to try to ensure that it stopped nuclear enrichment. The Trump administration also hoped a strapped Iran would become less…

Critics call President Donald Trump a diplomatic wrecking ball, while his supporters admiringly watch him take on foreign policy challenges that previous presidents chose to ignore or left to diplomatic "experts." Who's right? This week, the rubber meets the road. Trump's highly personal approach to negotiating with foreign powers &…

This deserves to be front-page news.  Amid the constant headlines announcing the latest manifestation of a roaring U.S. economy, however, not to mention ceaseless media pearl-clutching over everything down to President Trump's morning breakfast selections, it hasn't received the attention and celebration that it merits.  Simply put, Trump…

What can Democrat Chuck Schumer, Republican Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump agree on? Almost nothing, but they agree China is robbing America blind and has to be stopped. When the president slapped a punishing 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods starting July 6, his least likely GOP ally, Senator Marco Rubio, applauded the…

Reaction to President Trump's summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has broken down along the usual Trump-anti-Trump divisions. The truth is, it will take a while before it's clear whether the summit achieved anything or not. But give the president credit for trying a new approach to an intractable problem. Trump had no electoral mandate…

Recently, President Trump tweeted, "I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts. Total Fake News!" The tweet was greeted with incredulity in some press circles. CNN called it "simply false." "The facts suggest the opposite," said the Washington Post. "Mostly false," declared Politifact…

As part of what he calls a "redesign" of the State Department, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has surveyed more than 35,000 State employees on the most fundamental questions facing the organization. And Tillerson—or, more accurately, a consulting firm hired by the secretary—has found that large blocs of State workers do not…

Globalists and Democrats shrieked last week when President Donald Trump proposed cutting American funding for the United Nations by 50 percent. The president dismisses the U.N. as a "waste of time and money." That's the least of it. U.S. taxpayers bankroll the U.N. with $10 billion a year. Our hard-earned money perpetuates an organization…

A key talking point in the theory that Donald Trump and the Russians conspired in the 2016 election is the allegation that last summer, during the Republican convention, the Trump campaign changed the GOP platform to weaken its stance on Russia's aggression in Ukraine. It's been cited by Democrats and anti-Trump pundits many, many times. The only…

Candidate Donald Trump set off a furious controversy when he said NATO countries should pay their "fair share" of mutual defense costs and, later, that the treaty organization was "obsolete" because not enough of its efforts were directed against radical Islamic terrorism. On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence took the Trump message…

Secretary of State John Kerry used the word "conscience" over and over again as he attempted to explain and justify the Obama administration's decision not to veto a one-sided U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel. He added that the U.S. could not "stand idly by" while Israel torpedoed any hope for a two-state solution…

The Islamic State, you have to acknowledge, is on quite a roll. Over the July 4 weekend, the FBI arrested a northern Virginia neighbor of mine, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh. He was apparently plotting a Fort Hood style attack and told an FBI informant: "I just want to live a good Muslim life and die as a Shaheed (martyr)." Jalloh was thwarted,…

Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum in Japan this week, a month before he and President Obama will meet foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit. Reuters reported that he witnessed "haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them…

For American presidents, overseas appearances provide trademark moments that symbolize them and cement their legacies, particularly visits during the autumn months of their presidencies.  For John F. Kennedy, perhaps no moment better captured his vibrancy and Cold War steadfastness than the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in a Berlin…

President Obama is heading to Cuba in two weeks, eager to unveil more travel and trade concessions to the country's Communist regime. But is he too eager to befriend Fidel and Raul Castro, no matter the price? Members of Congress fear the president will cave to Cuba's demand to hand over the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. Chairman of the House…

Throughout the last third of George W. Bush's presidency, opinion leaders were obsessed with the question of mistakes. Among most members of the press and among Democratic officeholders (even, or perhaps especially, those who voted to approve the Iraq War), the appetite was strong to hold President Bush in a half nelson until he admitted that the war…

Libya is in chaos. It's a festering pit of radicalism, anarchy and death, epitomizing everything that can go wrong when Western intervention has no clear long-term purpose. And a woman who believes she should be president of the United States — ostensibly on the strength of her decision-making abilities as secretary of state — believes…

The Democratic Party has been weak-minded on defense for decades, but with the Iran capitulation, they've achieved a new threshold of cowardice and treachery. While it's true that an honorable handful of Democrats have resisted the president's pressure, the overwhelming majority have chosen to go over the cliff with Barack Obama, a president who never…

The refugee crisis in Europe is one of those human tragedies for which there are no real solutions, despite how many shrill voices in the media may denounce those who fail to come up with a solution. Some options may be better than others, but there is nothing that can honestly be called a solution. Nevertheless many countries, including the United…

There are plenty of good reasons to be depressed over the recent deal hammered out in Vienna to address Iran’s nuclear program. For one, it bears the imprimatur of President Obama who, as the Bowe Berghdal swap and the Cuba deal illustrate, is a master of “buy high, sell low” negotiations. For another, the negative implications for…

At a Tehran mosque last week, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- amid chants of "death to America" and "death to Israel" -- explained to a crowd that his nation's interests are "180 degrees" in opposition to the United States. "Even after this deal, our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change," he explained.…

Distinguished scientist Freeman Dyson has called the 1433 decision of the emperor of China to discontinue his country's exploration of the outside world the "worst political blunder in the history of civilization." The United States seems at this moment about to break the record for the worst political blunder of all time, with its Obama…

I was elected to end wars, not start them. — Barack Obama The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. — George Orwell A question has hung in the air since Barack Obama first moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and began his "fundamental transformation" of this country: Did he intend harm, or was he merely so blinded by ideology…

There are no sure things in politics, but Hillary Clinton is the closest thing to a sure thing to become the Democrats' candidate for president in 2016. This is one of the painful but inescapable signs of our time. There is nothing in her history that would qualify her for the presidency, and much that should disqualify her. What is even more painful…

After the pro-Western government of China was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan in 1949, when the Communists took over mainland China, bitter recriminations in Washington led to the question: "Who lost China?" China was, of course, never ours to lose, though it might be legitimate to ask if a different American policy toward China could…

What to make of President Obama's interpretation of the Iranian leadership? Challenged by The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg to account for the seeming inconsistency of relying on the rationality of a regime that holds a profoundly anti-Semitic worldview, the president denied that the "venomous anti-Semitism" (his words) of the mullahs is a…

"Did George W. Bush Create ISIS?"  That's a headline question The New Yorker asked in its latest issue.  Predictably, the Obama Administration and left-leaning apologists engage in the same blame diffusion as ISIS expands its territorial control and ghoulish body count.  Even Rand Paul, looking to boost his 2016 presidential…

Headless bodies lie in the sand. Above those corpses stand the black-clad minions of ISIS, outlined against the coastline of Libya. This is the second video in three months depicting Islamic terrorists cutting the heads off of Christian captives. Bodies float in the Mediterranean Sea, face down. Twelve Christian bodies, thrown from a rubber boat by…

Two relatively recent photos of Barack Obama with foreign leaders reveal much about his deep-dyed leftism. The first features President Obama and democratically elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of one of America's most loyal friends. Obama looks strained. His face is stiff, and his eyes are veiled. The second is a snap of Obama at…