November 9, 2009
War in Afghanistan
In Defense of Hamid Karzai
“To blame Mr. Karzai is to point the finger at the wrong culprit in the pursuit of disastrous, dishonorable defeat.”
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Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal
#46 Bret Stephens
The Wall Street Journal
Bret Stephens is a foreign-affairs columnist and the deputy editorial-page editor at The Wall Street Journal.
More information
Stephens can make the conservative case for hawkish foreign policy and American unilateralism so convincingly that he has persuaded more than a few liberals to join his side. In prose that is sophisticated but disarmingly casual, he favors objective moral calculus over the pure self-interest espoused by most on the foreign-policy right.
Editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post from 2002 to 2004, Stephens is more an internationalist than a neoconservative, though he arrives at many similar conclusions as neoconservatives. He has criticized Obama for incoherence on issues like the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center. He has also attacked the administration for an overreliance on diplomacy, arguing that inaction in Iran could lead to a preemptive strike from Israel.
Stephens can make the conservative case for hawkish foreign policy and American unilateralism so convincingly that he has persuaded more than a few liberals to join his side. In prose that is sophisticated but disarmingly casual, he favors objective moral calculus over the pure self-interest espoused by most on the foreign-policy right.
Editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post from 2002 to 2004, Stephens is more an internationalist than a neoconservative, though he arrives at many similar conclusions as neoconservatives. He has criticized Obama for incoherence on issues like the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center. He has also attacked the administration for an overreliance on diplomacy, arguing that inaction in Iran could lead to a preemptive strike from Israel.
Bret Stephens on All Topics
Displaying 16-30 of 59
October 26, 2009
Climate Change
Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics
“Part of the genius of Marxism, and a reason for its enduring appeal, is that it fed man's neurotic fear of social catastrophe while providing an avenue for moral transcendence. It's just the same with global warming.”
October 19, 2009
The President
Does Obama Believe in Human Rights?
“Not long ago, I found myself driving behind a car with 'Free Tibet,' 'Save Darfur,' and 'Obama 08' bumper stickers. I wonder if it will ever dawn on the owner of that car that at least one of those stickers doesn't belong.”
October 12, 2009
Obama's Nobel Prize
A Perfect Nobel Pick
“Far from being an aberrant choice, President Obama was the ideal one, Scandinavianally speaking.”
October 5, 2009
UN General Assembly
How Israel Was Disarmed
“When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts ... few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran's nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.”
September 28, 2009
American Foreign Policy
The Neocons Make a Comeback
“The neocons are back because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin never went away.”
September 22, 2009
UN General Assembly
Summits of Folly
“In 1943, Walter Lippmann observed that the disarmament movement had been 'tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament.' That ought to have been the final word on the subject.”
September 15, 2009
Confronting Iran
Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War
“Obama has now ceded the driver's seat on Iran policy to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He would do better to take the wheel again, keeping in mind that Iran is beyond the reach of his eloquence.”
September 7, 2009
War in Afghanistan
The Afghan Stakes
“[The war in Afghanistan] is not the noblest fight, and no sane nation would wage it by choice. But we did not choose it and, if we keep our nerve, we can win it.”
August 25, 2009
National Security
Liberals and the CIA
“Today, liberals within government and without are betraying covert CIA operatives as if it were the very essence of virtue. Consistency, principled or foolish, has never been a hobgoblin of the liberal mind.”
August 18, 2009
American Foreign Policy
Talking to the Enemy
“The world at large is not America, and we can't bust every extortion racket in it (though we can bust a few).”
August 10, 2009
North Korea
Being Kim Jong-Il
“No competent tyrant mistakes public adulation for love. But unlike Saddam Hussein or Nicolae Ceausescu, [Kim Jong-Il] aims to die peacefully in [his] bed, just like [his] father. On present course, [he'll] get [his] wish.”
August 4, 2009
Climate Change
Global Warming and the Poor
“If global warming really is the catastrophe the alarmists claim, the least they can do for its victims is not to patronize them while impoverishing them in the bargain.”
July 27, 2009
American Foreign Policy
Do Dissidents Matter?
“Why is the Obama administration borderline Nixonian when it comes to making common cause with today’s dissidents?”