In this week’s crisis over Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurds are experiencing a painful version of Newton’s Third Law: In Middle East politics, as in physics, every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. The initial action was Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani’s decision to push ahead last month with a c
Donald Trump is notorious in the business world for stiffing other companies when it’s time to pay the bill — offering partial settlement of what he owes and proposing to negotiate the rest. Trump did a version of that Friday when he announced he will stay in the Iran nuclear deal for now, but quit
Various cultures have different phrases for expressing the idea of having it both ways at once. “To take a swim and not get wet” is an Albanian proverb. Poles talk about “having the cookie and eating it.” Iranians want “both God and the sugar dates.” The Trump administration has been weighing a cont
Top US officials have said repeatedly that America is seeking a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis with North Korea. But President Trump’s insulting comments toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appear to have made such a negotiated settlement more difficult. In the chaotic government-by-Tw
How can news organizations avoid the trap that President Trump has laid for them in his attacks on the media as a one-sided “opposition party” that caters to anti-Trump elites and purveys “fake news” to readers and viewers? Part of the answer is simply for journalists to keep doing their jobs, aggre
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has often been the silent man in the Trump foreign policy team. But out of the spotlight, he appears to be crafting a broad strategy aimed at working with China to resolve the North Korea crisis and with Russia to stabilize Syria and Ukraine. The Tillerson approach f
As the US-led coalition accelerates its campaign to destroy ISIS’ remaining strongholds in Syria, the Trump administration faces a big decision about the future: Does it want to keep some US troops inside the country to help stabilize Syria after the jihadists are defeated, or does it want to
Jeannie Rousseau de Clarens, one of the remarkable spies of World War II, died last week in France at the age of 98. Like so many intelligence officers, she had a gift for getting people to talk. But she had something else: dauntless, unblinking courage in facing the enemy. De Clarens stole one of t
Will President Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy alter the dynamics of America’s longest and most frustrating war? Do commanders really have any better chance of succeeding now than when this conflict began 16 years ago? I put those questions by phone Tuesday to Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson Jr., who fo
Intelligence officers sometimes talk about “blowback,” when covert actions go bad and end up damaging the country that initiated them. A year later, that is surely the case with Russia’s secret attempt to meddle in the US presidential election, which has brought a string of adverse unintended conseq
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has defiance in his blood. It’s said his grandfather once asked what would happen if the United States defeated North Korea in war, to which his father answered: “If we lose, I will be sure to destroy the Earth. What good is the Earth without North Korea?” President T
