In June 2014, the organization known variously as “ISIS” (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), “ISIL” (… in Iraq and Levant), simply “the Islamic State,” or—from the Arabic—“Da’esh” burst dramatically onto the geopolitical scene by capturing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, from the country’s large, U.S.-equipped national army. ISIS’s capture of Mosul, coming after […]

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  In Syria, the United States has adopted a none-of-the-above strategy. President Barack Obama has launched airstrikes against ISIS targets in the Euphrates Valley and against an unrelated radical group near Aleppo. But the administration does not want airstrikes to benefit Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. So it proposes to spend $500 million to create a […]

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  Exit Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Not a day too soon and five years too late. The enormity of the tragedy he helped create is almost too great to grasp. Civilians murdered with weapons the U.S. had provided an Iraqi army that proved incapable of confronting a small but disciplined band of terrorists. Rape […]

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  By next year, a residual force of 9,800 u.s. troops will remain in Afghanistan, down from 33,000 this year and 100,000 in 2011, according to drawdown plans announced by President Barack Obama. At the time the president announced that policy in late May, the cost of the two big foreign policy initiatives of the […]

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(Photo: Hassan Rouhani | Source: Times of Israel) A six-month diplomatic dance with Iran is underway—each step as dainty as a minuet because any misstep is weighted with danger. The issue is Iran’s nuclear research program and the UN inspections that are taking place as a result. And while each side has its own agenda, […]

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