How Trump finally buried Iraq syndrome

January 21, 2026

Something crucial happened with President Donald Trump’s recent actions in Venezuela. In fact, taken together with his earlier moves abroad, they mark the substantive death of what might be called the “Iraq syndrome” — a paralyzing mindset that has distorted American foreign policy for more than two decades. The Iraq syndrome emerged after the failure of the Iraq War and the long, costly occupation that followed. To understand Iraq syndrome, one has to go back to Vietnam. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, America’s foreign-policy establishment fell into disarray. A new ...

Canceling laws some don’t like can cost lives

January 21, 2026

Americans who remember how an incident in Minneapolis six years ago plunged the whole country into a summer of rioting — then years of elevated criminal violence — should think carefully about where the protests over the death of Renee Good are leading. Like the killing of George Floyd, Good’s tragedy is being exploited for a political purpose, with the radical activists who then called for defunding the police now demanding an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — not only the agency, ICE, but the enforcement of the nation’s democratically enacted immigration ...

Minn. scandal is fraud warning hard to ignore

January 20, 2026

Growing national outrage over Minnesota’s welfare fraud is justified, but not because of where it took place or because it implicates members of any immigrant community. It’s much more than a “Minnesota” story. The outrage is justified because Americans are finally getting a concrete look at what happens when pushing public money out the door matters more than verifying the eligibility of the recipients, confirming services were delivered or, ultimately, being a good steward of taxpayers’ money. Since 2022, investigators have uncovered a staggering amount of fraud, ...

Is Obama’s red line still red line?

January 20, 2026

One of the most embarrassing moments of the Barack Obama presidency came in the context of the Syrian civil war. In August 2012, Obama vowed that “a red line for us,” which would thereby necessitate some sort of American intervention, “is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” The 44th president continued: “That would change my calculus.” Except it didn’t. A year later, former Iran- and Russia-backed Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s “red line,” launching a lethal sarin gas on his own people. Hundreds, ...

Martin Luther King’s message still powerful

January 20, 2026

In pausing to reflect on the Christ-centered teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this year, I reread his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” that he delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, which is now Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Scholars have not pinpointed the exact date King gave this eloquent and time-transcending message, but most agree he spoke to the Dexter Avenue congregation in mid-November of 1957. King took his text from Matthew 5:43-45, in which Jesus says, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But ...

Reliance on ‘mind’ assaults U.S. Constitution

January 16, 2026

In a scene in Robert Bolt’s famous play “A Man for All Seasons,” about the treason trial of St. Thomas More, More argues with the attorney general of Wales about the law. The attorney general says he’d cut down all the laws in England to get to the Devil. More reminds him that the laws were written to protect us from those who’d cut them down, because, More asks, when the Devil turns round and seeks you, where would you hide, the laws having been flattened? Answer: nowhere. The recent statement of President Donald Trump in an interview with The New York Times that on the ...