As President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is compared to Richard Nixon’s opening to China, Bibi Netanyahu must know how Chiang Kai-shek felt as he watched his old friend Nixon toasting Mao in Peking. The Iran nuclear deal is not on the same geostrategic level. Yet both moves, seen as betrayals by old U.S. allies,...

From first reactions, it appears that Hill Republicans will be near unanimous in voting a resolution of rejection of the Iran nuclear deal. They will then vote to override President Obama’s veto of their resolution. And if the GOP fails there, Gov. Scott Walker says his first act as president would be to kill the...

On arrival in La Paz, Pope Francis was presented by Bolivian President Evo Morales with a wooden crucifix carved in the form of a hammer and sickle, the symbol of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Fidel. Had Pope John Paul II been handed that crucifix, he might have cracked it over Evo’s head. For John Paul...

The Oklahoma Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, has ordered a monument of the Ten Commandments removed from the Capitol. Calling the Commandments “religious in nature and an integral part of the Jewish and Christian faiths,” the court said the monument must go. Gov. Mary Fallin has refused. And Oklahoma lawmakers instead have filed legislation...

In the 2016 race, June belonged to two outsiders who could not be more dissimilar. Bernie Sanders is a socialist senator from Vermont and Donald Trump a celebrity capitalist and legendary entrepreneur and builder. What do they have in common? Both have tapped into what the bases of their respective parties believe is wrong with...

However the Greek crisis ends, whether with Athens leaving the eurozone, or submitting and accepting austerity at the dictates of its creditors, the European Union appears headed for an existential crisis. Greece borrowed and spent beyond its means, like New York City in the ’70s, and Detroit, Illinois, and Puerto Rico today. But the crisis...

“Natural law—God’s law—will always trump common law,” said Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a Christian leader in her own right, “God will have the final word in this matter.” But, for now, Justice Anthony Kennedy has the final word. Same-sex marriage is the law of the land, as the right...

“I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you.” So said Nadine Collier, who lost her mother in the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, offering forgiveness to Dylann Roof, who confessed to the atrocity that took the lives of nine churchgoers at that Wednesday night prayer...

“U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe: A Message to Russia,” ran the headline in The New York Times. “In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in...

At the declaration by Donald Trump that he is a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, media elites of left and right reacted with amusement, anger and disgust. Though he has been a hugely successful builder-businessman, far more successful than, say, Carly Fiorina, who has been received respectfully, our resident elites resolutely...

Thousands of U.S. troops safeguard the border of South Korea. U.S. warships patrol the South China Sea to stand witness to the territorial claims of Asian allies against China. U.S. troops move in and out of the Baltic States to signal our willingness to defend the frontiers of these tiny NATO allies. Yet nothing that...

Half a century ago this summer, the Voting Rights Act was passed, propelled by Bloody Sunday at Selma Bridge. The previous summer, the Civil Rights Act became law on July 2. We are in the 7th year of the presidency of a black American who has named the first two black U.S. attorneys general. Yet...

Toward the end of the presidency of George H.W. Bush, America stood alone at the top of the world—the sole superpower. After five weeks of “shock and awe” and 100 hours of combat, Saddam’s army had fled Kuwait back up the road to Basra and Bagdad. Our Cold War adversary was breaking apart into 15...

Who rises if Assad falls? That question, which has bedeviled U.S. experts on the Middle East, may need updating to read: Who rises when Assad falls? For the war is going badly for Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since Richard Nixon was president. Assad’s situation seems more imperiled than at any time in this...

The culture war against Christianity is picking up speed. Last week came word Saint Louis University will remove a heroic-sized statue of Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet S.J. from the front of Fusz Hall, where it has stood for 60 years. The statue depicts Fr. De Smet holding aloft a crucifix as he ministers to two...

“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. . . . We can give them training, we can give them equipment; we obviously can’t give them the will to fight.” Thus did Defense Secretary Ash Carter identify the root cause of the rout of the Iraqi army in Ramadi....

“This is a Christian nation,” said the Supreme Court in 1892. “America was born a Christian nation,” echoed Woodrow Wilson. Harry Truman affirmed it: “This is a Christian nation.” But in 2009, Barack Hussein Obama begged to differ: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” Comes now a Pew Research Center survey that reveals...

The fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar, largest province in Iraq, after a rout of the Iraqi army by a few hundred ISIS fighters using bomb-laden trucks, represents a stunning setback for U.S. policy. When President Obama declared that we shall “degrade and defeat” the Islamic State, he willed the ends, but not the means....

As Middle America rises in rage against “fast track” and the mammoth Obamatrade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, The Wall Street Journal has located the source of the malady. Last Monday’s lead editorial began: “Here we go again. In the 1990s Pat Buchanan launched a civil war within the Republican Party on a platform...

Jeb Bush has spent the week debating with himself over whether he would have started the war his brother launched on Iraq. When he figures it out, hopefully, our would-be president will focus in on the campaign to drag us into yet another Mideast war— this time to bring down Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria....

David Cameron is the most successful Tory Party leader since Margaret Thatcher. Yet history may also record that his success led to the crackup of his country, and Great Britain’s secession from the European Union. How did Cameron’s Tories capture their majority? First, they compiled a strong record to run on. More critically, they attacked...

In the first quarter of 2015, in the sixth year of the historic Obama recovery, the U.S. economy grew by two-tenths of 1 percent. And that probably sugarcoats it. For trade deficits subtract from the growth of GDP, and the U.S. trade deficit that just came in was a monster. As the AP’s Martin Crutsinger...

Who killed Freddie Gray? According to Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, Freddie was murdered in a conspiracy of six cops who imprisoned him in a police van and there assaulted and killed him. The killer was African-American officer Caesar Goodson, driver of the van, who, with a “depraved heart,” murdered Freddie. This is a summation of...

Had Freddie Gray been robbed, beaten and left to die in the streets of his Baltimore neighborhood, no one would be mourning him today. No one would be marching for Freddie. No one would be using Freddie as the new poster child of “Black Lives Matter!” No one would care, three weeks later, but his...

Almost all of the declared and undeclared Republican candidates for 2016 could be found this weekend at one of two events, or both. The first was organized by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, and held in Point of Grace Church in Waukee. Dominated by Evangelical Christians, who were 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers in...

For a month now, the Saudi air force has been bombing Yemen to reverse a takeover of that nation of 25 million by Houthi rebels, and reinstall a president who fled his country and is residing in Riyadh. The Saudis have hit airfields, armor and arms depots, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Nearly 1,000 dead,...

The GOP swept to victory in November by declaring that this imperial presidency must be brought to heel, and President Obama’s illicit seizures of Congressional power must end. That was then. Now is now. This week, Congress takes up legislation to cede His Majesty full authority to negotiate the largest trade deal in history, the...

“Could a U.S. response to Russia’s action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?” This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest. The answer the authors give, in Countdown to War: The Coming U.S. Russia Conflict, is that the odds...

At the Summit of the Americas where he met with Raul Castro, the 83-year-old younger brother of Fidel, President Obama provided an insight into where he is taking us, and why: “The United States will not be imprisoned by the past—we’re looking to the future. I’m not interested in having battles that frankly started before...

The Republican rout in the Battle of Indianapolis provides us with a snapshot of the correlation of forces in the culture wars. Faced with a corporate-secularist firestorm, Gov. Mike Pence said Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act would not protect Christian bakers or florists who refuse their services to same-sex weddings. And the white flag went...

“Pat, sometimes it seems like our friends want me to go over the cliff with flags flying,” President Reagan once told me. Today, it is “Bibi” Netanyahu and the neocons howling “kill the deal” and “bomb Iran” who are shoving the Republican Party toward the cliff. The question, which may decide 2016, may be framed...

A voracious and eclectic reader, President Nixon instructed me to send him every few weeks 10 articles he would not normally see that were on interesting or important issues. In 1971, I sent him an essay from The Atlantic, with reviews by Time and Newsweek, by Dr. Richard Herrnstein. My summary read: “Basically, (Herrnstein) demonstrates...

In what has been called the “Catholic moment” in America, in the late 1940s and 1950s, Catholics were admonished from pulpits to “live the faith” and “set an example” for others. Public lives were to reflect moral beliefs. Christians were to avoid those “living in sin.” Christians who operated motels and hotels did not rent...

The forces that do not want a U.S. nuclear deal with Iran, nor any U.S. detente with Iran, are impressive. Among them are the Israelis and their powerful lobby AIPAC, the Saudis and their Sunni allies on the Persian Gulf, a near unanimity of Republicans and a plurality of Democrats in Congress. Is there a...

Though “Bibi” Netanyahu won re-election last week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will still look into whether the State Department financed a clandestine effort to defeat him. Reportedly, State funneled $350,000 to an American NGO called OneVoice, which has an Israeli subsidiary, Victory 15, that collaborated with U.S. operatives to bring Bibi down. If...

In November 1956, President Eisenhower, enraged he had not been forewarned of their invasion of Egypt, ordered the British, French and Israelis to get out of Suez and Sinai. They did as told. How far we have fallen from the America of Ike and John Foster Dulles has been on painful display this March. An...

With Hillary Clinton scrambling to explain her missing emails, much of America is wailing, “Please don’t make us watch this movie again!” Why, then, would the Republican Party, with a chance to sweep it all in 2016, want to return us to the nightmare days of George W., which caused America to rise up and...

As the European Coal and Steel Community of Jean Monnet evolved into the EU, we were told a “United States of Europe” was at hand, modeled on the USA. And other countries and continents will inevitably follow Europe’s example. There will be a North American Union of the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and a Latin...

America, we have a problem. In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can’t or won’t fight. The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and...

Eric Holder’s Justice Department has completed its investigation into whether Ferguson cop Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown in cold blood for racist reasons when he shot the black teenager last August. What did the massive six-month FBI investigation discover? According to the Washington Post, “after canvassing more than 300 homes and reviewing physical, ballistic, forensic,...

Last week, John Kerry seemed to be auditioning for the role of Dr. Pangloss. Despite jihadi violence across the Middle East and ISIS terror in Iraq and Syria, Kerry told Congress, we live in “a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally—less deaths, less violent deaths today...

If the sadists of ISIS are seeking—with their mass executions, child rapes, immolations, and beheadings of Christians—to stampede us into a new war in the Middle East, they are succeeding. Repeatedly snapping the blood-red cape of terrorist atrocities in our faces has the Yankee bull snorting, pawing the ground, ready to charge again. “Nearly three-quarters...

Back in 1987, this writer was invited by friends to advise them on a press conference they had called to oppose President Reagan’s signing of an INF treaty to remove all nuclear missiles from Europe. My advice: Deplore the treaty; do not attack the president. The next day, Howard Phillips declared that Ronald Reagan had...

“Free trade results in giving our money, our manufactures, and our markets to other nations,” warned the Republican Senator from Ohio and future President William McKinley in 1892. “Thank God I am not a free-trader,” echoed the rising Empire State Republican and future President Theodore Roosevelt. Those were the voices of a Republican Party that...

Hopefully, the shaky truce between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, brokered in Minsk by Angela Merkel, will hold. For nothing good, but much evil, could come of broadening and lengthening this war that has cost the lives of 5,400 Ukrainians. The longer it goes on, the greater the casualties, the more land Ukraine will...

The president’s request for the authorization to use military force against the Islamic State has landed in a Congress as divided as the country. That division was mirrored in the disparate receptions Obama’s resolution received from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. To the Times, Obama’s AUMF is “alarmingly broad. It does...

“A steady patriot of the world alone, “The friend of every country—but his own.” George Canning’s couplet about the Englishmen who professed love for all the world except their own native land comes to mind on reading Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. After listing the horrors of ISIS, al-Qaida and Boko Haram, the...

Seeing clips of that 22-minute video of the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, one wonders: Who would be drawn to the cause of these barbarians who perpetrated such an atrocity? While the video might firm up the faith of fanatics, would it not evoke rage and revulsion across the Islamic world? After all, this was...

Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence. In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in...

Last November, Republicans grew their strength in Congress to levels unseen since 1946. What united the party and rallied the nation was the GOP’s declared resolve to stand up to an imperious president. Give us powerful new majorities, said John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, and we shall halt these usurpations of Congressional power. And, so,...