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…

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…