Outside the Beltway

Several of the men apparently tied to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi have close ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly developing an explanation for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi that defies credulity.

The Saudis have been awful for generations. Why this?

Not surprisingly, it appears that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam, who effectively runs Saudi Arabia under his father’s rule, is behind the apparent plot against Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

The evidence that Saudi Arabia murdered Washington Post columnist and American Permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi appears to be incontrovertible.

For the second time this year, a Federal Court has struck down a state law designed to punish businesses that engage in a boycott aimed at Israel.

Last Tuesday, Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document he needed. He hasn’t been seen since.

The legal troubles for Tesla’s Elon Musk just got a lot more serious.

Seventeen years ago, America was thrust into a war that seemingly has no end.

President Trump wants Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department to investigate the anonymous Op-Ed published earlier this week even though there doesn’t appear to have been a crime committed.

The President was up late last night sending an incredibly over-the-top tweet directed at Iran.

The Trump Administration is inviting Vladimir Putin to Washington, D.C. for a second summit in the fall. What could possibly go wrong?

Three new polls show that Republicans basically agree with the leader of their party when it comes to the issue of Russian interference in American elections.

On the eve of the NATO Summit, President Trump continues to engage in tactics that seem to serve no purpose other than to undermine America’s most important and successful alliance.

Trump’s deal-making prowess in NK and Iran isn’t too impressive.

Trump uses an array of ugly language about immigrants. He pretends like he is just talking about MS13 but that is not the case.

Turkey’s authoritarian leader is going to be around for a long time.

A towering figure gone much too soon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces what could be a scandal that will quickly push him out of office.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a bombastic speech on Iran yesterday that reveals just how empty and dangerous the Trump Administration’s policy toward Iran actually is.

Russia wasn’t the only nation that sent people to meet with Trump Campaign officials at Trump Tower back in 2016 regarding assistance to the Trump Campaign.

Celebrations and a deadly day in the Middle East.

Does the administration know what it is doing?

As expected, President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran. There was no rational basis for doing so.

The new Secretary of State is an improvement over the worst Secretary of State in history.

Israeli Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday designed to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The evidence was unconvincing, but the speech was really only aimed at an audience of one.

Ronny Jackson did not invent the practice of giving Ambien and Provigil to high-level government workers.

For better or worse, Mike Pompeo will be confirmed as the 70th Secretary of State by the end of this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron is in the U.S. hoping to lobby President Trump to keep the United States in the nuclear deal with Iran. He’s got his work cut out for him.

There is no obvious strategy and even the expressed rationale makes no sense.

The United States can’t do any good in Syria, but we can do a lot of bad.

Even the United Nations has given up trying to maintain an accurate estimate.

President Trump took to Twitter this morning and decided poke a stick in the eye of the Russian bear.

The United States has several options in Syria. None of them are good and one of them would be disastrous.

A response to one of the most deadly chemical attacks in the Syrian civil war has come, probably from Israel. What’s next?

Dan Drezner notes some challenges on this topic, and I add some of my own thoughts.

President Trump seems intent on walking away from the nuclear deal with Iran. If he does, he’ll be handing a gift to Iran and harming American national interests significantly.

In selecting John Bolton as his National Security Adviser, Donald Trump has signaled to the world that he’s likely to take action that will only serve to make the world a more dangerous place.

Turkish security personnel who assaulted peaceful protestors in America’s capital will go free.

Americans actings as agents for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been working hard to manipulate the President.

The selection of Mike Pompeo as the next Secretary of State makes it more likely that President Trump will take the foolish and dangerous step of withdrawing the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran.

Nine years later, at least one member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is admitting what seemed at the time a rather obvious fact.

By threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, Donald Trump is making it far less likely that any upcoming talks with North Korea will succeed.

The Russia investigation rolls on with more evidence of questionable conduct on the part of Trump and his team.

In 2017, there were ten Saudis on Forbes’ billionaires list. This year, there are none.

The circumstantial case for corruption by Kushner is growing.

Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, the country made a smooth transition from apartheid. Now it’s going the way of Zimbabwe.

I’ve made the sad discovery that longtime friend of the blog John Burgess passed away on February 16, 2016.

The White House chief of staff has downgraded the President’s son-in-law’s access to classified information. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Continuing a long-standard tradition, the Trump Administration claims it doesn’t need to get legal authorization to keep American troops in Syria.