Outside the Beltway

Patrick Shanahan is out as nominee to be Secretary of Defense after questions were raised during his background investigation.

As we head toward a potential crisis in the Persian Gulf, the consequences of the President’s lies are coming home to roost.

Tensions are increasing in the Persian Gulf as the Iran war hawks seem to be winning the battle for the President’s support.

A new report in The New York Times raises both national security and Constitutional concerns.

Bret Stephens (and others) are overreacting.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg laid out his foreign policy platform in a speech this week. It’s certainly an improvement over the current President.

This time on Venezuela

Expanding on events that have been going on for months, two oil tankers were attacked today near the entrance to the Persian Gulf

The tree that President Trump and French President Macron planted last year has died.

While the American media was paying attention to President travels and travails in Europe, there was another meeting taking place.

Donald Trump has betrayed the legacy and the sacrifices of the soldiers who fought their way onto the beaches of Normandy.

Jared Kushner’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan is still awaiting release, but it already appears to be dead on arrival.

His colum in WaPo isn’t very good.

Do you want to get money out of politics? You need to get politics out of money.

President Trump is in Japan, and while there is is dismissing the seriousness of new North Korean missile tests that threaten Japan.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been indicted on seventeen counts under the Espionage Act arising out of his role in the Chelsea Manning affair.

Some 2020 Democratic hopefuls are turning to a surprising source for counsel.

Taiwan has become the first nation in Asia to legally recognize same-sex marriage.

The White House claims to want to talk to Iran but the President’s actions make clear that negotiation is the furthest thing from his mind.

President Trump’s foreign policy has largely been a failure, and there are specific reasons why.

While he campaigned on a message of restraint, Donald Trump has largely adopted the interventionist foreign policies of his predecessors.

The Trump Administration is taking an unnecessarily militaristic approach toward Iran, and that poses real dangers for the country and for the Middle East.

The former Kentucky coal executive, Republican fundraiser, and Ambassador to Canada would replace Nikki Haley in what used to be a position dominated by more experienced diplomats.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden is calling for an end to American support for the Saudi war on Yemen.

The Trump Administration’s policies toward Iran aren’t going to work, but that’s because they aren’t supposed to work.

The Wall Street Journal tries, and fails, to defend President Trump’s indefensible veto of the Congressional resolution regarding the war on Yemen.

President Trump has not surprisingly vetoed a Congressional resolution to limit American support for the Saudi war on Yemen. His defense for doing so is utterly absurd.

Both major parties have claimed victory but it certainly looks like Likud will hang on.

Strategic move or pointless provocation?

The mea culpas and I-told-you-so’s are rather premature.

The Speaker says she will reject any attempt to deliver it in a “highly classified” manner.

The key remains the military.

The Saudis tortured an American citizen, but the Trump Administration doesn’t care.

In the end, the reason the Hanoi Summit failed is because the Trump Administration is pursuing an unattainable goal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being charged with three charges of corruption even as he faces an election in just over a month.

Instead of merely seeking to block the President’s declaration of an “emergency” at the southern border, Congress should instead significantly amend the National Emergencies Act.

While the rest of the world looks at other events, tensions are flaring in a long-standing global hot spot.

After two years of spitting in their faces, President Trump is finding it hard to get America’s European allies to come to his aid.

And if you don’t know, now you know.

Rather than pulling completely out of Syria the United States will be leaving behind a token force of about 200 troops. This is a mistake.

Following Donald Trump’s lead, the GOP is making clear that its game plan for 2020 is paint all Democrats as ‘socialists, baby killers, and anti-Semites.’

The Trump Administration continues to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, can it ever be repaired?

In a rare display of assertiveness in the foreign policy arena, the House voted yesterday to bar U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen.

The arguments against withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan are becoming weaker and weaker.

More than any recent President, Donald Trump displays a tremendous amount ignorance about the world. Even worse is the fact that he seems proud of it.

Having two presidents sounds like a terrible sitcom idea. In reality, the situation is just plain terrible.

Former Senator and Denocratic Presidential candidate Jim Webb is reportedly being considered for Defense Secretary.

Not surprisingly, President Trump significantly accelerated the pace of his lies in 2018.

President Trump has lost another one of his top advisers on the fight against ISIS.

In what clearly appears to be a rebuke of the President, Defense Secretary James Mattis is retiring as Secretary of Defense.