A crude conspiracy: Saudi Arabia’s oil war is about far more than economics November 16, 2014 Having worked in Washington for the better part of a decade, I absolutely despise conspiracy theories, as they simply do not explain the world as I’ve found it. Rather than an evil, omniscient series of Bond villains ruling things, my experience is that human error and fallibility explain far more. As Bob Woodward’s key source [...]
Fall of the Berlin Wall: The weary West has forgotten how it won the Cold War November 9, 2014 “Right Here, Right Now, There is no other place that I want to be, Right Here, Right Now, Watching the world wake up from history” – Jesus Jones, Right Here, Right Now Experiencing the fall of the Berlin Wall – whose twenty-fifth anniversary just passed this weekend – is one of those historical events (a [...]
US elections: Obama can only salvage his failing presidency if his party loses November 2, 2014 There is a lovely story about how the administration of US President John F Kennedy – for all its intellectual glitter and panache – managed to get Vietnam so wrong. Coming back from his first cabinet meeting, vice president Lyndon Johnson told his mentor and great friend Sam Rayburn, a crafty giant of the House [...]
The West’s eyes are on Syria – but Islamic State is still winning in Iraq October 26, 2014 There is little doubt that Islamic State’s (IS) siege of Kobani in Syria is a gripping story. Echoing similar narratives to the Alamo and the Boxer Rebellion, a small band of brave and determined “good guys” (in this case the Syrian Kurds) miraculously seem to be holding off hordes of fanatical “bad guys” (IS). Indeed, [...]
Ebola to Ukraine: The West has failed to pay the piper – with terrible results October 19, 2014 Something truly terrible happened in Hamelin, Germany in the early Middle Ages, something so dire it has become embedded in western consciousness as the fairy tale “The Pied Piper.” Whether the town experienced a severe case of the Black Death, a rush of emigration to Eastern Europe, suffered through the Children’s Crusade, or was the [...]
Bombing IS in Syria was always going to fail – and Washington knew it all along October 12, 2014 In his magisterial work The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam makes clear that the essential tragedy of the Vietnam War was US decision-makers’ inability to see beyond the Potomac river in Washington, DC. Every policy debate concerned what would sell in the city’s foreign policy community, rather than what might make sense on the [...]
One country, two cultures: There’ll be no happy ending to the Hong Kong protests October 5, 2014 “We claim nothing but the liberty and privileges of Englishmen… we can not be deprived of them without our consent.” – George Mason, a founder of the American republic, 1776 “There is no room to make concessions on important principles.” – The People’s Daily, the official paper of the Chinese Communist Party, 3 [...]
Why taking on Islamic State in Syria is a recipe for unmitigated disaster September 28, 2014 For all that he is supposed to be a master communicator – and despite the oceans of ink spilled on the subject – I must confess I have no idea what exactly President Obama is trying to do against the Islamic State (IS). The White House talks of degrading and ultimately destroying the militants by [...]
Little Britain: The UK will never punch above its weight again if the Scots vote to leave September 17, 2014 I ONLY lost it once on 9/11. It was some time after the third plane hit the Pentagon that early September morning. Working flat out at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, I was dimly aware the phone was ringing incessantly, as my staff went on with the important job of working out who was [...]
The five questions Obama must answer to prove Iraq disasters won’t be repeated September 11, 2014 We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.” – John F Kennedy, Profiles in Courage I HAVE a theory about those of us engaged in politics or political analysis; each of us will have a “Profiles in Courage” [...]
