During a trip to the Middle East, U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and another senator met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to talk about a range of issues, including the war in Yemen and the slaying of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last fall.
Middle East
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
America withdraws as the Middle East burns
NEW YORK — There’s a lot to be optimistic about today. In almost every part of the world, economies are growing and war, poverty and disease are receding. But then there is the Middle East. Syria remains a collapsed country; more than 5 million of its people have already fled. Yemen is now the site […]
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Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Iranian threats may spur Saudi-Israeli alliance
The Iranian-sponsored November 4 ballistic missile attack on Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, continues to roil the Middle East — and it should. Recently I wrote that missile attack signaled an escalation in the simmering regional war between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Iran’s Shia Islamic revolutionary regime. Their proxy war in Yemen would become more […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Middle East policy seems muddled, ineffective
NEW YORK — While we have been focused on the results of special elections, the ups and downs of the Russia investigation, and President Trump’s latest tweets, under the radar, a broad and consequential shift in American foreign policy appears to be underway. Put simply, the United States is stumbling its way into another decade […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Trump’s visit added turmoil to Middle East
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump returned from his first overseas trip convinced that he had unified America’s historic Arab allies, dealt a strong blow against terrorism and calmed the waters of an unruly Middle East. Since then we have seen a series of terror attacks in Europe and the Middle East, and an open […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Middle East’s siren call will capture Trump
In Greek mythology, sirens were beautiful creatures that lured sailors to their doom with their hypnotic voices. In Homer’s epic, “The Odyssey,” ships came to ruin on jagged reefs, following siren song, the pull of the beautiful voices so strong that the hero Odysseus, in order not to succumb, commanded that his crew lash him […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Robert Charles gives foreign policy talk in Wayne
WAYNE — Paths toward defeat of ISIL and its worldwide terrorist activity were suggested by Robert Charles, a former official under U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, at a community meeting at Cary Memorial Library’s Williams House in Wayne on Sunday afternoon. Mistakes that were made early in the Iraq War were seeds of the “toxic mix” of […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Fareed Zakaria: Let Arab world lead the fight against ISIS
AMMAN, Jordan — Washington is getting enthusiastic about an ideological war these days: not between Democrats and Republicans — that’s old news — but rather between Americans and radical Islam. Many of those who spent the past several weeks insisting that we label jihadi terrorists “Islamic” now urge that we fight them on the ideological […]
Posted inLetters
A. Bennett: A suggestion for peace
What happens when you get yourself in the middle of a 3,000-year-old knife fight? The answer: Nothing good. For a long time now, the U.S. has been actively engaged in the Middle East — bombing, strafing, killing and being killed. The financial and actual lifeblood of this nation has been spilled on the sands of […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Fareed Zakaria: American intervention is not the answer
NEW YORK — The Paris terror attacks were barbaric but also startling, leading many to ask what could be done to prevent this kind of terrorism in the future. One man has a clear answer. “That attack you saw in Paris? You’ll see an attack in the United States,” Sen. John McCain told The New […]