Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Fifteen years ago, I told my dear friend Katharine Birbalsingh that Michaela would one day compete with England’s best schools. iPINIONS reports that its latest A-level results suggest I wasn’t just encouraging her. I was forecasting a mission built on discipline, high expectations, and a refusal to indulge the soft bigotry of low expectations. Read… Read more.
Condoleezza Rice helped sell Bush’s Iraq War by warning that the smoking gun could become a mushroom cloud. iPINIONS contends that she is recycling that same preventive-war logic for Trump in Iran, where a supposedly quick campaign has metastasized into mounting deaths, destruction, and conflict over the Strait of Hormuz. Read my full take on… Read more.
JD Vance is fulfilling his Republican duty by questioning the valor of Kamala’s VP pick, Tim Walz. It might seem like a symptom of the congenital imposter syndrome Vance suffers. But it’s actually a manifestation of the smear campaign Republicans execute as an article of faith. Tim Walz, a retired National Guard Command Sergeant Major,… Read more.
Many Americans are just too jingoistic to concede that the Taliban won this 20-year war. But the way the Taliban presided over America’s humiliating retreat from Kabul last month betrays the truth. As it happened, I declared the Taliban and al-Qaeda the winners 10 years ago. I argued that terror alerts had been spooking us… Read more.
Around 21,000 Rohingya have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two months, as Burmese forces launched what one UN official says is ‘getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity’ [aka ‘clearance operations’ or religious cleansing]. TIME reports from the Bangladesh border, where the full horror is only just… Read more.
The U.S. will slow the pace of its troop drawdown in Afghanistan, leaving 8,400 troops there when President Barack Obama completes his term, Obama announced Wednesday in a blunt acknowledgment that America will remain entangled there despite his aspirations to end the war. In a statement at the White House, Obama said the security situation in… Read more.
Listening to Republicans swoon over his leadership, you could be forgiven for thinking they wish Putin were president of the United States. Granted, this swooning probably reflects their partisan/racial hatred of Obama more than their love of Putin. But there’s no denying a totalitarian ideation that makes far too many Republicans swoon over cocksure leaders who… Read more.
Whenever former VP Dick Cheney criticizes President Obama’s foreign policies, he comes across like a condemned man pleading for political absolution; no time more so than with respect to Iraq. Never mind that his criticisms are invariably about as credible as those of an arsonist criticizing the way firemen are putting out the inferno he ignited.… Read more.
Obama ran for president by highlighting differences between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and those he intended to pursue. Except that I annoyed fellow liberals by pointing out the similarities between Bush’s policies and those Obama began pursuing almost from day one of his presidency. In fact, commentaries as early as “Obama Angers… Read more.
The War Powers Act The War Powers Act of 1973 requires US presidents to get congressional consent before committing the military to armed conflict. But almost every president since WWII has ignored this Act. Under the Act, the President can only send combat troops into battle or into areas where ‘imminent’ hostilities are likely, for… Read more.
