WASHINGTON — Imagine your own beloved child was lying in a hospital with a mysterious brain disease. Should you, as the parent, be allowed to decide whether to continue treatment for your son or daughter? Or should the state have the power to overrule you and cut off life support over your objections? The vast […]
Marc Thiessen
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
What Democrats can learn from Emmanuel Macron
WASHINGTON — Emmanuel Macron and President Trump don’t agree on much. Macron is a globalist; Trump is a nationalist. Macron is a free-trader; Trump just imposed protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum. Macron wants the United States to remain in Syria; Trump wants to get out. Macron wants to preserve the Iran nuclear deal; Trump […]
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Posted inLetters, sj-web
Column was fake news
As an example of how fake news sneaks up on the public — in his column (April 8) Marc Thiessen stated that President Barack Obama caused the problems in Syria by not leaving a larger force in Iraq before pulling out. I accepted that until I remembered that Obama was following an agreed-upon target date, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Senate Foreign Relations Committee abdicating its responsibilities
WASHINGTON — For the first time in the history of the republic, it appears increasingly likely that a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote against the president’s nominee for secretary of state. If this happens, it would be a black mark not on Mike Pompeo’s record, but on the reputation of this […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
North Korea will be watching what Trump does in Syria
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s decision last year to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base was intended to send the Assad regime a message that its use of chemical weapons would no longer be tolerated. But the strikes also had a broader purpose: showing other regimes that the Obama era of U.S. […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Republicans and Democrats just did something big together
Washington seems to be in the grip of hyperpartisan gridlock these days. Important bills are passed on party-line votes (when they are passed at all) and the investigative committees of Congress appear to be sideshows, unable to agree on basic facts. Many Americans despair that Republicans and Democrats seem incapable of coming together to do […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
President Trump threatening to repeat Obama’s mistakes
WASHINGTON — During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump excoriated President Barack Obama for “the way he got out of Iraq,” which Trump said “was the founding of” the Islamic State. As president, Trump reiterated during a meeting with Iraq’s prime minister that “we should never ever have left. A vacuum was created.” Trump was right. […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Make Democrats an offer they can't refuse
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s tweet promising “NO MORE DACA DEAL” was an Easter gift to Democrats, letting them off the hook for their failure to seriously negotiate an immigration agreement. Rather than pulling the plug on any Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals talks, Trump should offer Democrats a simple deal: He would agree to codification […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
There is nothing wrong with a census question about citizenship
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is being sued over its plans to include a question about citizenship in the 2020 Census, which California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) says “is not just a bad idea — it is illegal.” No, it’s not. There is nothing wrong with asking about citizenship. Canada asks a citizenship question […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Trump's new team an improvement
WASHINGTON — In the wake of President Trump’s decision to appoint John Bolton as his national security adviser and Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, a consistent criticism has emerged: Trump will no longer have any “adult” supervision in the national security decision-making process or any Cabinet-level “checks” on his own worst instincts. This view […]