Ira Straus, at The Blogs

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Oct 3, 2024, 12:55 PM

The Biden Doctrine

Consider the sequence of dramatic posturing after the Iranian attack: Iran threatens that if Israel responds to its attack, Iran will hit Israel back massively -- wildly disproportionately. Biden’s response: to threaten Israel that it must not retaliate to...

Sep 29, 2024, 7:00 AM

Israel Must Pursue and Disarm Hezbollah Fast

The proper goal of this war is not to push Hezbollah back 10 km. It is to disarm Hezbollah – to destroy all its missiles and artillery – and send it into collapse. When the enemy is in retreat, follow...

Sep 28, 2024, 4:05 PM

The Biden Doctrine: Never Actually Win

Ukraine. Iran. Hamas. Hezbollah. The Houthis... The enemy varies, but the Administration policy is mostly the same. And the same under Obama: Syria. ISIS. And Ukraine back then, too. We should call it the Biden Doctrine. And the Obama-Biden Doctrine. And...

Sep 19, 2024, 6:16 AM

A Real Lebanese Govt Would Destroy Hezbollah Now

If Lebanon had a real government, it would seize on this opportunity cut down Hezbollah. It would destroy its armed forces, eliminate it as a state within a state, and probably outlaw it in favor of some other group...

Sep 4, 2024, 8:11 AM

Biden-Harris v Trump on Hamas’ Hostage Murders

The two parties are not as far apart on the latest murders by Hamas as they usually are. On the surface, they agree. But under the surface, there are profound differences. Harris Vice President Harris has strongly blamed Hamas for murdering...

Sep 2, 2024, 8:46 AM

Media Use Hostages as Rallying Cry against Israel

The Western media have turned the hostages into a rallying cry against Israel. It has become so routine that we almost take it for granted nowadays: the hostages are a by-word for victim-blaming, not for criminals-blaming. The operational demands are...

Aug 28, 2024, 10:11 AM

The New Stage in Collective Media Lying

A new article exposes with great clarity a horrifying reality: obvious and near-unanimous mass media lying about the latest Hezbollah-Israel exchange of fire. Hezbollah itself has acknowledge that its attack on Israel was prepared as a mass attack in response...

Aug 16, 2024, 6:24 AM

How Dishonest Media Could Be Made Honest

Yet another mendacious article appeared today in the Washington Post about civilian deaths in Gaza. “More than 40,000 killed in Israel’s war in Gaza,” the title read. Not the actual "Israel-Hamas war", but “Israel’s war”, as if it were being...

Aug 2, 2024, 2:56 PM

Can’t Biden Thank Israel for Killing Shukar?

He should. In a better world, Biden would be saying: “All of America is grateful to Israel for tracking down the Hezbollah terrorist leader Fu’ad Shukar and eliminating him. We too were after him. The FBI had a bounty on his...

Jul 25, 2024, 1:09 PM

Israel: not white colony, but “white” “colony”

Better education will not stop the Left and the universities from defining Israel as a “white colonizer” country. That is because they are not using these words in English. They are using them in pretend English, while meaning it...

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About Me

Chair, Center for War/Peace Studies; Senior Adviser, Atlantic Council of the U.S.; formerly a Fulbright professor of international relations; studied at Princeton, UVA, Oxford. Institutions named above for identification purposes only; views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the author.