By abandoning virtually all its demands for serious restrictions on Iran's nuclear bomb program, the Obama administration has apparently achieved the semblance of a preliminary introduction to the beginning of a tentative framework for a possible hope of an eventual agreement with Iran. But even this hazy "achievement" may vanish like a…

Recent statements from United Nations officials, that Iran is already blocking their existing efforts to keep track of what is going on in their nuclear program, should tell anyone who does not already know it that any agreement with Iran will be utterly worthless in practice. It doesn't matter what the terms of the agreement are, if Iran can cheat…

Maybe I'm too sensitive, but when a foreign autocrat leads his people in chants of "Death to America," I take it personally. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry apparently don't. The chant, which became a staple of the Islamic Republic during the 1979 revolution, is not a relic of the past. Just last weekend, at a rally in…

There is a unicorn lair in North Korea. We know this because the Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, tells us so. According to the official Korean Central News Agency, archaeologists have "recently reconfirmed" the existence of the unicorn lair dating back to the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392). President Obama has his own unicorn lair. It…

Is there no end to the circus parade of tawdry Clinton family scandals?  Hillary's ill-advised and potentially illegal email activity as Secretary of State rightfully occupies the electorate's attention.  As GeekWire.com security expert Christopher Budd concluded, it might "represent one of the most serious breaches in data handling…

"Traitors!" screamed the headline of the New York Daily News. "Beneath the dignity of the institution I revere," huffed Vice President Joe Biden. "Dangerous and irresponsible," opined The Washington Post's David Ignatius. President Obama offered that it was "ironic" that the senators were on the same side as…

Senator Tom Cotton is out to teach the Iranian leadership a lesson about the U.S. Constitution, and is getting no help from the Obama administration. Earlier this week, Cotton wrote – and forty-six other Republican U.S. Senators signed – an open letter to the Iranian government explaining the short shelf life of any deal that allows them…

One aspect of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress that really seemed to get under the skin of many Obama loyalists was his contention that the Jews are facing another 1938. And of course, the historical analogy is imperfect because historical analogies are almost always imperfect. The problem for the Jews is that in this…

As they say, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.  Sixty-nine years ago this week, one august foreign leader widely admired in the United States delivered a historic speech to an American audience, sounding the alarm against a looming malevolent regime.  This week, another august foreign leader also widely admired in the…

The Obama administration values a future relationship with Iran more than it values the historic relationship it has with Israel. Unless there's a reversal in the reported deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, all the superficial talk about this extraordinary friendship between Israel and the United States isn't going to mean much. And the histrionics…

Is non-interventionism's record of success any better than that of American projection of power?  It's a question that must be confronted at a moment in which the globe appears progressively aflame, our 2016 presidential campaign begins to take form and foreign policy concerns increasingly dominate our political discourse.  In the aftermath…

Are there two more representative hires in the Obama Administration than Jen Psaki* and Marie Harf, the pair of thirty-something State Department spokeswomen who seem like they’ve been cast in a sitcom about sorority girls in over their heads? Last March, it was Psaki* who beclowned herself when — keeping with the Obama Administration&…

At the White House Summit on Extremism That Shall Remain Unspecified Because Violent Followers Belonging To Unnamed Extremist Movement Might Take Extreme Offense And Act Extremely, the feds are touting a groundbreaking new strategy to fight terrorists. Just kidding. It's actually the same old futile strategy that big-government liberals use to cure…

President Obama's scolding of Western civilization at the National Prayer Breakfast ("Lest we get on our high horse...") may go down in history as the emblematic moment of his presidency. It was atrociously ill timed and characteristically sophomoric. My colleague Jay Nordlinger observed that Obama sounded just like the students in the 1980s…

Last year, during the funeral services for Nelson Mandela in South Africa, President Obama was photographed shaking the hand of Cuban President Raul Castro, a move that infuriated Cuban exiles and all those who oppose the murderous regime in Havana. At the time, the critics were told that they were overreacting to a gesture that was little more than…

It is often observed that American presidential elections tend to be an application of Isaac Newton's Third Law of Physics:  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.   In other words, we tend to elect presidents who contrast with their immediate predecessors.  To the degree that proves true in 2016, Senator Rand…

As the world hurtles toward a frighteningly chaotic state, unity with America's allies and toughness toward our enemies become increasingly critical.  A public opinion survey this week from Rasmussen brought new clarity to the issue, and provided a grim new milestone:  "The number of voters who think the United States is winning the…

Joe Biden uncloaked his fanciful inner hawk this week in response to escalating butchery in the Middle East, but commentators largely overlooked a tawdry irony in his most highly publicized comment:  "When people harm Americans, we don't retreat.  We don't forget.  We take care of those who are grieving.  And when that's finished…

Were Barack Obama gliding into a typical presidential dénouement — his last years in office spent primarily on ceremonial duties and trying to cement a legacy — all of the frustration about his perpetually declining work ethic — the serial rounds of golf, the fund-raising excursions, the leisurely dinners — would perhaps…

The Obama Doctrine in Iraq has proven undeniably disastrous, threatening to permanently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  After inheriting a stabilizing Iraq in the aftermath of a Bush Administration troop surge (which Obama claimed in 2007 couldn't succeed), Obama's decisions have resulted in today's ghoulish genocide and deepening chaos…

What a difference a decade makes. Imagine if, in 2004 — with George W. Bush in the heat of a reelection campaign conducted against the backdrop of the Iraq war— some prescient observer of American politics had told you that a decade hence the Republican Party would be more unified in its position on health care than on foreign policy.…

It’s not unusual for American presidents to spend their second terms — a time when they’ve usually exhausted public good will and seen the ranks of the opposition party swell in Congress — pursuing a legacy in foreign policy. God help us if Barack Obama decides to go down that road. With more than half of his second stint in…

Back during the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were both prone to criticizing Barack Obama’s lack of experience by saying that the presidency isn’t a position that lends itself to learning on the job. More than five years later, that’s the least of our concerns. Learning on the job would be a huge improvement…

Nearly five years into his presidency, Barack Obama still has nothing approaching a unified vision of foreign policy. To the extent that there’s an “Obama Doctrine,” it’s never been articulated. We simply have to suss it out from his actions. As best I can tell, it operates on the following principle: Give your allies the back…

Nearly half a decade after he won the presidency, we can now look back on Barack Obama’s rise to power with perspective that wasn’t available at the time, when his status as a dashboard saint of American politics made it difficult to subject the soon-to-be chief executive to any critical scrutiny. As I’ve written in the past, successful…

Four presidential speeches in Berlin manifest the worrisome trajectory of American vigor, the contrasting stature of three presidents and the miniaturization of Barack Obama.  In June 1963, John F. Kennedy stood near a Berlin Wall erected two years earlier and defiantly proclaimed, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of…

James Lileks, the great wag of Minnesota, recently opened his National Review column with an observation that deserves to be placed onto a plaque hung permanently in the Oval Office: “Second terms are the price a man pays for the hubris of thinking he deserves one.” Because Barack Obama’s supply of hubris is in surplus, it should…

What will the State Department’s $250 million in new foreign aid to Egypt buy for American taxpayers?  That’s the question facing Secretary of State John Kerry after he stunned Congress by coming up with a quarter of a billion dollars just days after the March 1 budget sequestration went into effect.  Kerry is framing the spending…

This week the White House let the press know that President Barack Obama is considering Chuck Hagel, the former Republican Senator from Nebraska, to be the next Secretary of Defense.  The trial balloon touched off an interesting debate among conservatives and libertarians about whether to support the choice.  The Cato Institute, a libertarian…

“I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance…