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Trump Cannot Deliver A Quick Exit From Iran

Whatever else Donald Trump’s “ pause ” is, it is not a ceasefire. Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes struck across Iran. What Mr Trump’s statement did was to narrow US targets to exclude power plants and energy infrastructure to calm jittery markets. But the fighting continues. With reports that the US is considering boots on the ground, Washington is waging war while searching for an exit – without a credible or unified negotiating position, as Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu pursues his own ...

In Praise Of Senator John Fetterman

When the Senate voted last week on a resolution intended to limit the president’s authority to continue military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the outcome was predictable: Democrats largely supported the measure as a check on the Trump Administration, while Republicans largely opposed it. Only one Democrat broke with his party to do what was right for the United States. The Senator in question is Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, who voted with Republicans to oppose the resolution. Over the weekend, he tweeted, “Why do Democrats now universally condemn what ...

We Are Owed Coherent Reason For Iran Strikes

Can anyone reading this editorial right now explain, clearly and succinctly, why the U.S. is currently engaged in an open-ended military operation against the Islamic Republic of Iran? If you said yes, congratulations — you’re doing better than the Trump administration. President Donald Trump and his advisers have offered nothing but shifting and often self-contradictory explanations since the American-Israeli attacks against Iran started over the weekend. A war powers resolution vote of the kind some in Congress are trying to force is the very least that must happen. Conflicts ...

Illegal War Is Becoming The New Norm

The killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by a US-Israeli strike is a targeted assassination of a head of state. It also marks a grave escalation in a region already burdened with smouldering wars and fragile states. The consequences of the deliberate strike will reverberate across a Middle East marked by the aftershocks of foreign intervention. Revulsion against the hardline regime in Tehran, or the desire for a better future for the Iranian people, does not confer a legal justification. Force is lawful, under the UN charter, only in self-defence against an ...

Trump Rallies UN Security Council On Gaza, Hamas

Maybe the United Nations isn’t as useless as it so often shows. Last Monday the Security Council endorsed President Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, ratifying for the first time the requirements that Hamas disarm and Gaza be demilitarized. The resolution passed 13-0, with Russia and China abstaining. It’s a setback for the terrorists. Many had worried that the U.S. jaunt to the Security Council would come at the price of bending the peace plan’s terms for Hamas or adding anti-Israel terms. Would France’s Emmanuel Macron elbow his way into the deal’s implementation? ...

Picnic Season In Hickory Heights

Picnics took on various purposes through the years. Sometimes we had picnics when the men were working. That meant that either my sister-in-law and her family traveled or we did. In those days we ran two farms together. When the men worked at the lower farm, the picnic was there. When they worked on the upper farm that is where we had our picnics. Of course, whoever happened to be working with them that day had a picnic with us. The neighbor’s children were often helpers. Boy could those kids eat. They were good to feed because they ate everything and never complained. They sat by ...