The Big and Bad Ones

Bad Ideas Led to Libya Civil War, Newsday, April 28, 2019. "In 2011, the United States led an intervention that deposed Libyan dictator, terrorist, and crackpot Muammar Gaddafi. Since then, U.S. and Western policy toward Libya has embodied every big, bad idea in our arsenal."

Germany's the Problem

Want A Good Ally? Then Be A Good Ally, Newsday, June 4, 2017. "Trump isn’t entirely in the right in this clash. But he’s more right than wrong. His idea that trade surpluses are always good and trade deficits are always bad is wrong. In the end, trade is an exchange of goods among individuals. If our government attempts to make it harder for us to buy what we want from abroad, it’s trying to tell individual Americans what we should do with our own money. That’s wrong."

Proof of Churchill's Contention That No One Learns From History

"Britain’s Report on the Libya Fiasco," Forbes, October 1, 2016, "Almost unnoticed in the United States – and neglected even in Britain – the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has produced a superb report on Britain’s role in the disastrous NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. It makes for depressing, if valuable, reading."

Your Talk Is Big, Sir, But Your Act Is Small

From Libya to Ebola, Obama Administration Talks Big But Acts Small, Newsday, October 19, 2014. "The Obama administration has responded to the Ebola epidemic by talking big. It does that well. From the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti to Syria's use of chemical weapons in 2013, the administration has made a lot of splashy responses. But making a splash isn't the same as being serious."

Obama's Three Failed Middle East Aims

Barack Obama’s Mideast Strategy Has Failed, Newsday, January 17, 2014. "The damning report of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Benghazi confirms that the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound was planned and carried out by al-Qaida."

On the Curious Contradictions Between Obama's Foreign and Domestic Policies

Barack Obama Doubles Down Abroad, Newsday, November 8, 2013. "Obama's policy of backing down abroad and doubling down at home is out of sync with the American system. Under the Constitution, the president is supposed to be energetic abroad, but restrained at home. This president has been the reverse. His approach has served the nation poorly, and in any deal with Iran, it will prove disastrous."

Syrian War Won't End There

Jihad is the War that Won’t End, Newsday, September 27, 2013. "When that conflict ends, the forces opposing Assad will move elsewhere, including to Europe. We may not want to intervene in Syria, but Syria is likely to intervene in us."

No Staying Power

Dictators and Despots Call Obama’s Bluff Over His War of Empty Words, Yorkshire Post, September 16, 2013. "The Russian role in the Syrian crisis is thus not the really dangerous part of the affair. The true danger lies in the fact that, once again, President Obama has shown that he has no staying power at all. He quit in Iraq, because that was supposedly the wrong war. Afghanistan was, he said, the right one. Well, we are quitting there too."

Against All Enemies, Mostly Domestic

Obama Sets His Sights on the Enemies Within, Yorkshire Post, June 26, 2013. "We want safety, and not just from terrorists, which is reasonable. We want it everywhere. The vast bureaucracies of the modern world, whether they are intelligence agencies or benefit payers, are all about trying to prevent unpleasantness. It is a strange kind of mind that finds this troubling when it comes to our security, but still welcomes the advance of the state everywhere else."

Rapid Debate Responses

LIVE BLOG: Biden, Ryan Square Off in Vice Presidential Debate, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 11, 2012. Instant reaction on various subjects, including Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, and the economy, raised in the debate.

On the 2012 SOTU

American Leadership AWOL Again, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 24, 2012. "The President’s remarks in his State of the Union Address on foreign policy were formulaic. This Address was about domestic policy and, ultimately, about the 2012 election, which the President clearly believes will be won or lost on the basis of his record at home. Unfortunately, that does not absolve him of his responsibility to do more than slot token references on events abroad into his remarks."

University Travel and Totalitarians

Blue State Travel to Cuba, Contentions, January 3, 2012. "A friend has forwarded me a solicitation from the University of Michigan’s Alumni Association to join them on a “Cultural Connection” visit to Cuba. It is a depressing piece of moral blindness. For $3,845, Wolverines can enjoy an eight day trip, complete with “a visit to a local health clinic” to “learn about socialized medicine and the delivery of social services in Cuba,” a trip to an art institute to “compare and contrast the role of the arts in Cuba and the United States” and “identify any differences in the opportunities for artistic expression,” and a “substantive discussion” with the management team of a dance company to explore “the political and financial challenges they face” (i.e. the U.S. embargo) in exporting Cuban dance culture. There is a good deal more in the same vein, including a visit to the Museum of the Revolution and dinner at the Restaurante Vieja Havana, “formerly the American Club,” but you get the picture. It would be pleasant if moral blindness was all that was involved here, but sadly, it’s not."

Who Gets the Job Done?

Force, Not Law, Got Qaddafi, Contentions, October 24, 2011. "Dan Pipes observes that Qaddafi is the sixth former tyrant to be tracked down like a common criminal in the past decade – Milosevic, Karadzic, and Mladic from Serbia, Hussein in Iraq, Bin Laden in Pakistan, and now Qaddafi. Very true, but what stands out to me about this list is that none of these successes had much to do with Nuremberg-like processes, the International Criminal Court, or the U.N., no matter how much responsibility is attributed to them."

The Ends of Dictators

Comparing Qaddafi and Mussolini, Contentions, October 24, 2011. "They were both centers of cults of personality, relentlessly occupied in trying to stir up trouble, bitterly hostile to democracy and to every manifestation of liberalism, with an overblown crackpot ideology that masqueraded as a self-sufficient cure for all ills, and a brutal regime that was treated far more seriously than its accomplishments or the skills of its leader merited."

Competence Matters

Obama’s Leadership is Devaluing the West, and We Will All Pay the Penalty, Yorkshire Post, October 3, 2011. "If governments want to succeed on big matters, they need to get the small ones right. So much of the everyday work of governing is tiring and dull, but it is important. Managing programs, proposing bills, and dealing with the legislature is the price of winning last time, and the stuff of victory next time. President Barack Obama is failing on the small stuff, and it is dragging his administration down in a big way."

Obama's Top Ten Errors on Libya

Obama’s Top Ten Errors on Libya, Centre for Policy Studies, September 1, 2011. "Instead of focusing on the unknown – for we do not know what will come next in Libya – and trying to judge the war by its aftermath, we should give thought to the known, and judge the war by the consequences it has already produced. Here, therefore, are the top ten errors of President Obama’s conduct of the Libyan War to date."

What Could Have Been in Libya

US Leadership Melts Away Into Sands of Libya Over Obama’s Foolish Humanitarian Foray, Yorkshire Post, June 24, 2011. "It didn’t have to be this way. Across the Middle East, the perception is growing that the U.S., in its haste to find the exit, has forgotten the ironclad rule of the region: reward your friends and punish your enemies. Instead, the U.S. is trying to pacify quarrels by slapping its allies down and allowing the worst of the dictators to slide by. From Obama’s perpetual jabs at Israel to his reluctance to speak out against the Assad regime in Syria, he is feeding the belief that the U.S. wants to bug out. A decisive NATO intervention against the Gaddafi regime would have demonstrated that West is not quitting, that it retains the will and the ability to act."

So, About Those Harriers

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone, Contentions, April 15, 2011. "William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, now says that “It would be useful to have a larger number of aircraft capable of striking ground targets.” Mr. Hague is right. What Britain needs now is an aircraft capable of taking off from an aircraft carrier conveniently parked off the coast of Libya, able to land on rough or improved airstrips, and able to engage both air and ground targets. Such an aircraft would allow Britain to respond more quickly to targets as they are identified, maintain a continual presence in the air and thus keep the heads of Gaddafi’s thugs down, and spend less time and aviation fuel flying its small force of Tornado GR4s back and forth across the Mediterranean. . . . But of course, Britain grounded its Harrier force as a result of its last defense review, conducted by Mr. Hague’s government."

Kosovo Redux

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Kosovo, Contentions, April 15, 2011. "Does the Libyan affair remind anyone of Kosovo? It’s taking place on Europe’s borders, yet—as always when Europe’s hour strikes—no one from the EU is home. NATO has taken over, but most of its members are unenthusiastic. British leadership is a constant, while France has replaced Germany—even more riven by pacifism today than it was in the 1990s—as Britain’s comrade in arms. The U.S., militarily essential as always, gives the appearance of indecision when compared to Britain, although the sentiments of the British people are less clear."

The Case of the Missing Harriers

Libya Mission Demonstrates That British Defense Cuts Must Be Reversed, with Nile Gardiner, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3231, April 19, 2011. "The prime minister cannot effectively wage a major military campaign in Libya without reversing the crippling defense cuts his Coalition government has introduced, as well as significantly increasing defense spending. The government should reconsider the review and reject its flawed foundations. The British armed forces should be funded at a level sufficient to allow them to successfully accomplish the missions given to them by the country’s political leaders."