Outside the Beltway

Violence leads to irrational policy responses. Who does that help?

Syrian refugees have quickly become political footballs in the United States in the wake of the Paris attacks, and it’s become an exceedingly shameful display of pandering and fearmongering by a group of largely Republican politicians.

Confirming speculation that had already been all but confirmed, we now know that it was a bomb that brought down a Russian passenger jet on October 31st.

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, there’s a strong impulse to do “something,” but that doesn’t mean we should do something utterly foolish. And a no-fly zone would be utterly foolish.

France launched its first attacks against ISIS even as the investigation into Friday’s attacks continues, but it’s not clear that the retaliation really accomplished anything.

We are legally, morally, and practically obligated to respond. Let’s not do so stupidly.

We can draw a rather direct line from the Iraq war to the rise of ISIS.

France’s President blames ISIS, vows response, as death toll from Paris terror attacks stands at at least 127.

Ben Carson displays incoherence and ignorance on foreign policy issues that disqualify him from being considered a serious candidate for President of the United States.

President Obama is set to sign a military spending bill that effectively guarantees that his 2008 campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will go unfulfilled.

The investigation continues, but the consensus seems to be growing that Metrojet 9268 was taken out by a bomb.

America’s much touted international coalition against ISIS is, essentially a Coalition In Name Only.

President Obama has apparently come to the same realization as many of his predecessors, that trying to craft a legacy by single-handedly bring about “Middle East Peace” is largely a waste of time.

In a new book, former President George H.W. Bush is highly critical of two of his son’s closest advisers in the White House.

American intelligence officials are saying that a Russian passenger jet that went down over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula was most likely brought down by a bomb.

Another day, another military escalation in the Middle East.

President Obama is reportedly considering a plan that would put American forces much closer to the ground war in the war against ISIS.

The U.S. and Russia have reached a much-needed deal to avoid inadvertent confrontations over the skies of Syria.

Missed it by that much.

With Russia now launching its own airstrikes in Syria, it’s become obvious that U.S. policy in the Syrian Civil War is irrational and contradictory. And Russia’s policy isn’t any better.

The U.S. is set to ramp up its contribution to dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis, but there’s a lot more we can do.

President Obama now has enough votes in the Senate, and probably the House, to ensure that Congress cannot block the nuclear deal with Iran.

Congress is set to debate the Iran nuclear deal next month, but as far as Europe is concerned the debate is already over.

Another poll shows that a majority of Americans oppose the Iranian nuclear deal, but the effort to defeat it in Congress is still likely to fail.

To lose something one has to have it in the first place. (It is pretty basic logic).

Like many Republicans, Jeb Bush continues to be willfully blind to the truth about the Iraq War.

President Obama’s confrontational approach to opponents of the Iran Nuclear Deal ignores legitimate questions.

Recent polling has shown the American public to be highly skeptical, at beast, of the Iran Nuclear Deal. That may not be enough to kill it in Congress, though.

After 30 years in prison, Jonathan Pollard will be released later this year.

In bringing Holocaust imagery into the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, Mike Huckabee has displayed the intellectual bankruptcy of his position.

Reports are circulating that the Obama Administration is considering releasing Jonathan Pollard, and many are seeing it as an effort to placate Israel in the wake of the Iran deal.

Good news for the President.

The U.N. Security Council has approved the Iranian nuclear deal, and now the ball is in Congress’s court.

In the end, the odds that Congress can actually stop the new deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program are pretty low.

Depending on who you listen to, it’s either peace in our time or an epic catastrophe.

The Administration announced changes to the way the government handles hostage situations, but it really doesn’t amount to much.

A well-founded fear of ISIS seems to be drawing many of the former Soviet Republics in Central Asia closer to Moscow.

In a case that took seven months to decide, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Presidency’s broad authority in foreign affairs, and inserted itself just a little bit in the thorny politics of the Middle East.

Turkey’s governing party suffered big setbacks at the ballot box yesterday.

Some unusually blunt, but true, language from the U.S. Secretary Of Defense.

Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first truly-elected president, has been sentenced to death by the government which ousted him in a coup.

The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has seen better days.

The Vatican has announced that it will recognize Palestinian statehood, but this is not going to resolve the underlying issues that prevent a Palestinian state from actually coming into existence.

A plan to distribute migrants from the conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa across the entire European Union seems destined to cause political conflict.

Like most Republicans, Jeb Bush either fails or refuses to recognize what an utter, unjustifiable disaster his brother’s decision to invade Iraq actually was.

Jeb Bush told a group of supporters that his brother is his top Middle East policy adviser. This strikes me as being a bad idea.