Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion. They were not idle musings, but written in advance. Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked back the next day. Trump himself […]
READ MORE.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump, the first post-inaugural White House visit by a foreign leader, could shape the Middle East for generations. Pre-meeting speculation centered on how the leaders would handle the Hamas-Israel war. Stunningly, Trump’s comments just before and then after his meeting with Netanyahu focused on the U.S. […]
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History in the Middle East is moving very fast these days. The long-overdue fall of Syria’s Assad regime is only the latest evidence, and Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration will accelerate the pace. The central question is whether the principal players seize opportunities now open for lasting regional peace and security before they quickly close. […]
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Dr. Dave Wurmser Transitions of administrations, when passing from one party to the next, are always tricky processes. There is much change, and there is much effort to avoid change. From my experience in previous transitions, this is especially true for transitions that pass from a left-leaning government to a conservative-leaning government. This is true […]
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Dr. Dave Wurmser There is a spurt of great optimism on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, and even Israel, that the Lebanese government, now that it has installed Joseph Aoun as its president, will finally leverage Israel’s devastating victory over Hizballah to assert Lebanon’s sovereignty. In order to uphold the […]
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During the 2024 campaign, candidate Donald Trump said he could resolve the Ukraine war in twenty-four hours by getting together with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky to thrash things out. At a January 7 press conference, President-elect Trump conceded it could take up to six months. Call that learning. Trump fundamentally wants the war to […]
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Turf-fighting is a way of life at the State Department, as in much of the federal government. The department’s complex and varied responsibilities have, over time, led to an organizational chart that has defied multiple attempts at rationalization. Its internal culture has simultaneously grown more entrenched. The Foreign Service is perhaps the government’s strongest civilian bureaucracy, buttressed […]
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Last month’s rapid collapse and fall of Syria’s Assad dynasty surprised the world, starting with Bashar Assad himself. Led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham and likely galvanized by Israel’s mauling of Hamas and Hezbollah, the rebel victory represents Iran’s third catastrophic defeat in trying to implement its anti-Israel “ring of fire” strategy. HTS and its leader, Ahmed […]
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Mr. Bolton was the longest-serving national security adviser in the first Trump administration and an assistant attorney general for the civil division at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration. He is the author of “The Room Where It Happened.” Four years ago this Monday, Donald Trump pressured Mike Pence to pursue a surreal interpretation […]
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The new administration should reject mandatory ‘assessments’ and fund only programs that work.Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has her work cut out for her. Fortunately, she’s already aware of the U.N.’s flaws. In a September op-ed for the Washington Examiner, she applauded Mr. Trump for withdrawing from the “corrupt and antisemitic” […]
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