Free Republic

American actions involving Venezuela have stirred up a flurry of theories and narratives around the United States’ strategic intentions. Some theories highlight apparent contradictions between rhetoric and policy, such as President Trump’s pardons of major drug-traffickers despite his public anti-drug stance. Others frame potential U.S. military threats against Venezuela as being driven primarily by America’s dependence on oil. Additional narratives have revived allegations of Venezuelan interference in U.S. elections, including claims from a former Maduro regime official about a “narco-terrorist war” against the United States. In my effort to better understand the factors driving the building tensions around Venezuela, I...

The Hoover Institution has just published a great summary of the American/Iranian relationship, including why things have gotten so tense (like the fast book incident a few weeks ago) and why some suspect Iran of having a nuclear weapons program: http://www.hoover.org/research/focusonissues/focus/13769442.html Best of all, according to Hoover, we may not need to go to war with Iran after all. This will be good news to those who have tired of our involvement in Iraq: “In a collaborative article written by the Hoover Institution’s Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow Michael McFaul and Hoover research fellow Abbas Milani, they argue that...