Trump Foreign Policy
January 8, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Iran retaliated against the United States last night for the termination of Qassem Soleimani with extreme prejudice. From inside Iran it fired some 15 ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces — one in Erbil in northern Iraq and the large Al Asad base in western Iraq. One missile hit the base in Erbil (apparently four missed); ten hit the Al Asad base. No U.S. or Iraqi casualties
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January 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
At Power Line, we sometimes refer to the Washington Post as an adjunct of the Democratic Party. To an even greater degree, the Post is an adjunct of official Washington — the cadre of career bureaucrats and former officials who consider it their God given right to set policy, regardless of what elected officials desire. (There is, of course, considerable overlap between official Washington and the Democratic Party). Thus, it’s
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January 6, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds posted an interesting message from a Facebook friend who wishes to remain anonymous. Here’s the relevant part: Following the death of Soleimani, it seems like nearly the entire DC / academia / journo natsec/forpol commentariat has penned variations on exactly the same essay: the President has acted hastily, has no plan, and isn’t capable of envisioning or handling what happens next. The template was established
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January 4, 2020 — John Hinderaker
Iran or its proxies fired a few mortars and rockets at the Green Zone in Baghdad today: Two mortar rounds hit the Green Zone in Baghdad on Saturday and two rockets slammed into a base housing US troops, security sources said, according to AFP. No one was injured. This is a pretty lame response to the killing of General Soleimani, and I assume there is more to come. I do
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January 4, 2020 — John Hinderaker
General David Petraeus gave an interview yesterday on the significance of the killing of Qasem Soleimani. It is well worth reading: Marco Werman: How did you know Qasem Soleimani? Gen. David Petraeus: Well, he was our most significant Iranian adversary during my four years in Iraq, [and] certainly when I was the Central Command commander, and very much so when I was the director of the CIA. He is unquestionably
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January 3, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
When Iranian-backed militias attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Ayatollah Khamanei reportedly boasted that America “cannot do a damn thing” about it. This harked back to America’s failed effort in 1979 to rescue hostages Iran held. During a demonstration in Tehran following that fiasco, one of the signs said, “America can’t do anything.” All nations respect nations that can do things — in other words, nations that effectively wield power.
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January 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Referring to the targeted assassination of Iran’s terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained: “It was time to take action.” The FOX News clip below from its morning news show runs short of two minutes, but Pompeo knows what he is talking about and should be heard out. AEI’s Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka explored the role of the Democrats in encouraging Iran in
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January 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Let’s see if you can sort the sane from the “other” in the following hot takes on the termination with extreme prejudice of Iran’s terrorist commander Qassem Soleimani at the order of President Trump yesterday. Rich Lowry comments: This is an incredibly bold move that shows that Trump’s red line against harming Americans was very real. The conventional wisdom that Trump is just a Twitter tiger, which was driving news
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January 2, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Fox News reports that Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani has been killed in a rocket attack at Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani was the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. President Trump ordered the attack and our military carried it out. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said that Soleimani is as dangerous as the late ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed by a U.S. strike
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January 1, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
This front page Washington Post story about the siege by pro-Iran militias of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, now ended, is an attempt to score points against President Trump. The subtitle of the story (paper edition) is “Trump warns Iran but shows little appetite for deeper involvement.” Trump responded to the siege by deploying troops to the region. A president with an “appetite” for a “deeper involvement” than that would
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December 12, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The Trump administration negotiated the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), an important update and revision to NAFTA, a year ago, but House Democrats have refused, until now, to bring it up for a vote. Democrats have been focused exclusively on impeachment and other means of undermining the Trump administration, and didn’t want to give President Trump an important victory. Happily, that opposition has now collapsed, and Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday that
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December 9, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
These days, Rudy Giuliani wears two main hats. He runs a foreign consulting and legal practice and he advises President Trump. These dual roles raise the possibility that Giuliani’s advice to Trump is influenced by his work for foreigners. Indeed, according to this report in the Washington Post, Giuliani touts his closeness with Trump when pitching his services to foreigners. For example, says the Post: In one meeting with a
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December 4, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Victor Davis Hanson surveys President Trump’s foreign policy, focusing on China, Iran, and North Korea. Hanson argues that Trump’s recalibration of our policy towards these three nations has succeeded in placing maximum pressure on each to alter its policies. He warns, however, that as the pressure mounts, so does the prospect of dangerous provocations. Trump’s policies towards China, Iran, and North Korea are improvements over President Obama’s. As Hanson observes,
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November 27, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Iran has been roiled by demonstrations against the dramatic increase in the price of gasoline that was dictated by the government earlier this month. The demonstrations have been brutally suppressed, with somewhere between 100 and several hundred protesters killed by police. For several days, the mullahs pulled the plug on internet service to prevent videos of the protests and police brutality to be seen by the outside world. Totalitarian governments
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November 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared today that the U.S. does not regard Israeli settlements on the West Bank as illegal. He thus reversed the position taken by former Secretary of State John Kerry in the dying days of the Obama administration. Pompeo explained that, after carefully studying the issue, he concluded that President Reagan got it right when he found that the settlements are not illegal. Reagan had reversed
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November 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
According to the Washington Post, Nikki Haley claims in her new book that Rex Tillerson and Gen. John Kelly tried to recruit her to undermine President Trump in an effort to “save the country.” President Trump has tweeted an endorsement of Haley’s book and urged his followers to order a copy or attend her book tour. Has Trump read the book or is he relying on the “fake news Washington
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November 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
David Ignatius of the Washington Post instructs us to remember that “while Trump was playing politics on Ukraine, people who depended on U.S. military aid were getting killed and wounded.” Quite possibly, but Ignatius doesn’t present evidence that this is so. Instead, he cites casualties that occurred after Trump released the military aid: On Oct. 5, a man and a woman died after a grenade exploded in their apartment in
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