In his famous 1882 lecture "What is a Nation?" the French historian and philosopher Ernest Renan emphasized the role of collective memory and even fictitious or selective historical narratives in the creation and maintenance of national identity, writing "Forgetting,...
Foreign Policy
Three Paths to a Wider War in the Middle East
by Ted Snider | Oct 17, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
“We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out,” U.S. President Joe Biden promised when war erupted in Gaza. But that foreign policy legacy is in tatters. War has spread from Gaza to Lebanon and has arrived at the doorstep of Iran. There is...
Americans Must End Israel’s Serial Slaughter of Gaza’s Children
by Connor Freeman | Oct 14, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
It's time for the American people to stand up to Washington and demand an immediate end to the endless support the United States has provided to apartheid Israel for its killing spree during the past year. For fifty-seven years, Israel has subjected millions of...
Do They Want American Troops to Die?
by Dan McAdams | Oct 14, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
Biden administration mismanagement—or worse—from day one of the latest Israeli multi-front war in the Middle East has led us to where we are today, at the brink of an all-out regional war with some 40,000 U.S. troops and multiple U.S. military bases in the region with...
The Soul of a Socialist
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 12, 2024 | Blog, Economics, Foreign Policy
From the pen of H. G. Wells (1908), socialist: War is a collective concern; to turn one’s back upon it, to refuse to consider it as a possibility, is to leave it entirely to those who are least prepared to deal with it in a broad spirit. In many ways war is the most...
TGIF: Full versus Shrunken Liberalism
by Sheldon Richman | Oct 11, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Language, like the old common law and other customs, is a decentralized, undesigned, spontaneous institution. It serves humanity well. Nothing is perfect, of course, but no alternative—if one were conceivable—could hold a candle to it. One of the downsides is that...
Kamala Harris Isn’t Listening to U.S. Intelligence on Iran
by Ted Snider | Oct 10, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics
Who is “America’s greatest adversary?” That is the question 60 Minutes asked Vice President Kamala Harris. “I think there’s an obvious one in mind, which is Iran,” was her answer. She gave two reasons for her verdict: "Iran has American blood on their hands" and "what...
We Must Reject the Failed Hawkish Consensus on Iran
by Daniel Larison | Oct 10, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy
No matter who wins the presidential election next month, American policy towards Iran seems likely to remain extremely hostile and confrontational. Both campaigns seem determined to out-hawk each other. The Iran policy debate in Washington, such as it is, is focused...