Something revealing happened over the weekend on Fox News Sunday. Dick Cheney had stopped by to bash President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal and promote his new book (co-authored with his daughter Liz). But moderator Chris Wallace, to his credit, wanted to ask Cheney about his own failings on Iran. On the Bush administration’s watch, Wallace noted, Iran’s centrifuges for enriching uranium “went from zero to ...
Next week, Donald Trump will join Ted Cruz, Glenn Beck, and others at a rally denouncing the Iran deal. Which is ironic, because Trump is one reason the deal will pass. …
It’s now virtually certain that the Iran nuclear deal will survive congressional challenge. If opponents pass a bill rejecting the agreement, supporters have the votes to sustain U.S. President Barack Obama’s veto in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, a bill condemning the deal may not even garner enough votes to pass in the first place. The interesting question is why. …
Donald Trump has gotten a boost in his efforts to maul Jeb Bush in recent days from an unexpected source: Jeb Bush himself. Trump’s attack on Jeb isn’t mostly about issues. As with most things Trump, it’s mostly about persona. The Donald thinks Jeb is a dud. “He’s a man that doesn’t want to be doing what he’s doing,” Trump said in June. “I call ...
What imprint will the fight over the Iran deal leave on organized American Jewish life? Much is still not clear. But this much is: If you thought young American Jews were alienated from their communal elders before, just wait. Older American Jews are closely split on the Iran nuclear agreement. Younger American Jews are not; they support it overwhelmingly. According to a late July poll ...
U.S. President Barack Obama has really done it this time. To sell his Iran deal, “he’s hinting broadly at anti-Semitic conceits.” He’s “using terms that are often code words for Jews.” And his minions are using “anti-Jewish incitement as a political tool.” …
Over the past decade, the foreign-policy debate in Washington has turned upside down. As George W. Bush’s administration drew to an end, the brand of ambitious, expensive, Manichaean, militaristic foreign policy commonly dubbed “neoconservative” seemed on the verge of collapse. In December 2006, the Iraq Study Group, which included such Republican eminences as James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger, Ed Meese, and Alan Simpson, repudiated Bush’s core ...
Saying that Donald Trump performed poorly in last night’s debate is stating the obvious. By any sane standard he’s been performing poorly since he entered the race. Yet he’s leading in the polls. Still, last night Trump didn’t even do obnoxious well. The reason, I suspect, is that to debate effectively, even if you’re a goon, you must talk about something other than yourself. ...
Mike Huckabee’s sin was being too vivid. Last week, after the Republican presidential hopeful said that by signing the Iran nuclear deal, President Barack Obama “would take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven,” a parade of organizations and politicians accused him of inflammatory language and bad taste. But in both the United States and Israel, Huckabee’s core assumption—that the ...
What’s the difference between Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu? Rivlin can feel shame. “I visited the family in Tel Hashomer hospital,” said Rivlin after Jews burned Palestinian infant Ali Dawabsheh to death last week in the West Bank. “I visited, silently, ashamed.” …