Author: Patrick J. Buchanan

A major goal of this Asia trip, said National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, is to rally allies to achieve the "complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." Yet Kim Jong Un has said he will never give up his nuclear weapons. He believes the survival of his dynastic regime depends upon them. … Continue reading “Red Lines and Lost Credibility”

"The Kurds have no friends but the mountains," is an old lament. Last week, it must have been very much on Kurdish minds. As their U.S. allies watched, the Kurdish peshmerga fighters were run out of Kirkuk and all the territory they had captured fighting ISIS alongside the Americans. The Iraqi army that ran them … Continue reading “Are Our Mideast Wars Forever?”

With his declaration Friday that the Iran nuclear deal is not in the national interest, President Donald Trump may have put us on the road to war with Iran. Indeed, it is easier to see the collisions that are coming than to see how we get off this road before the shooting starts. After "de-certifying" … Continue reading “Is War With Iran Now Inevitable?”

Recently, a columnist-friend, Matt Kenney, sent me a 25-year-old newspaper with his chiding that my column had been given better play. Both had run in The Orange County Register on June 30, 1991. "Is there no room for new nations in the New World Order?" was my title, and the column began: "In turning a … Continue reading “Tribalism Marches On!”

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight," Samuel Johnson observed, "it concentrates his mind wonderfully." And the prospect of a future where Kim Jong Un can put a nuclear weapon on a U.S. city is going to cause this nation to reassess the risks and rewards of the American Imperium. … Continue reading “Is the American Empire Worth the Price?”

In crafting the platform in Cleveland on which Donald Trump would run, America Firsters inflicted a major defeat on the War Party. The platform committee rejected a plank to pull us deeper into Ukraine, by successfully opposing new U.S. arms transfers to Kiev. Improved relations with Russia were what candidate Trump had promised, and what … Continue reading “Is Trump’s Russia Policy Being Hijacked?”

Saturday, Kim Jong Un tested an ICBM of sufficient range to hit the U.S. mainland. He is now working on its accuracy, and a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop that missile that can survive re-entry. Unless we believe Kim is a suicidal madman, his goal seems clear. He wants what every nuclear power … Continue reading “Shall We Fight Them All?”

"One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies," writes columnist David Ignatius. Given that Syria’s prewar population was not 10 percent of ours, this is the equivalent of a million dead and wounded Americans. What justifies America’s participation in this slaughter? Columnist Eric Margolis … Continue reading “Are America’s Wars Just and Moral?”

"Iran must be free. The dictatorship must be destroyed. Containment is appeasement and appeasement is surrender." Thus does our Churchill, Newt Gingrich, dismiss, in dealing with Iran, the policy of containment crafted by George Kennan and pursued by nine U.S. presidents to bloodless victory in the Cold War. Why is containment surrender? "Because freedom is … Continue reading “Is Iran in Our Gun Sights Now?”

"Is Russia an enemy of the United States?" NBC’s Kasie Hunt demanded of Ted Cruz. Replied the runner-up for the GOP nomination, "Russia is a significant adversary. Putin is a KGB thug." To Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, the revelation that Donald Trump Jr., entertained an offer from the Russians for dirt on Clinton … Continue reading “Russia Baiters and Putin Haters”