President Obama is not a stupid man. After more than four years in the White House, he cannot be called a naive man or an inexperienced leader. He is not, despite the suspicions of some of his angrier critics, actively seeking to undermine the prestige and the power of the United States. So why has […]

There’s a tough issue that humanitarian interventionists need to take into account when it comes to Syria. There is really no good way to read the Constitution that gives the president an unlimited unilateral power to order US forces into combat for humanitarian missions, and it is even harder to find justification for a unilateral […]

[A Vintage Via Meadia essay originally published three years ago, republished and retweaked as a new cohort of first year students tries to figure out how to get the most out of college — and a new cohort of parents tries to figure out how to pay for it.]The anxious emails from students are hitting […]

The tea leaves aren’t easy to read, but at this point Congress appears to be inching reluctantly towards granting President Obama some manner of authorization to bomb Syria. But even as they come closer to authorizing acts of war, our elected representatives seem to be trying to evade the harsh truth about what they are […]

There is little to quarrel with in President Obama’s speech—beyond the usual observation that telling your opponents that your military attacks will be limited and short term is probably not the wisest course. Otherwise, he was clear. He is not letting the paralysis of the United Nations Security Council define his options and he has […]

The world’s eyes are riveted on Syria this week, as the United States, France and perhaps a few others organize plans to punish a bloodstained government for its use of chemical weapons against its own people. It’s a story that has everything: the prospect of violence, the political agony of an embattled White House, David […]

This is a guest post by Adam Garfinkle, editor of The American Interest. It is cross-posted from his blog elsewhere on this site. Be sure to bookmark his page!It is often remarked, mainly by frustrated parents and disrespected teachers, that two wrong do not make a right. But then what do they make? The scolds never […]

The last of the ancient kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was approached one day by a woman who offered nine books of prophecy at a steep price. The king refused; the price was too high. The woman burned three of the books and offered the remaining six at the original price. Nothing doing, said […]

President Obama has had a rude awakening in the Middle East. The region he thought existed was an illusion built on American progressive assumptions about the way the world works. In the dream Middle East, democracy at least of a sort was just around the corner. Moderate Islamists would engage with the democratic process, and […]

This is a guest post by Adam Garfinkle, editor of the American Interest. It is cross-posted from his blog elsewhere on this site. Be sure to bookmark his page!What happened in Egypt yesterday and is continuing to happen today is sad, disheartening and about as completely unsurprising as any such event can be. In Tuesday’s […]