Foreign Policy

Published Oct. 16, 2013, in The Waterloo Regional Record.

There are some life lessons to be gleaned from the current ongoing debacle in the U.S. Congress.

First and foremost, one should be advised not to pick fights they can't win.

This should seem obvious on the face of it, but when people have little self-awareness, and conduct all their conversations in an echo chamber with like-minded individuals, they can lose a grasp on objective reality.

Published Oct. 7, 2013, in The Waterloo Region Record. 

In the early days of the American union, thoughtful commentators, from James Madison to Alexis de Tocqueville, worried about the extremes of democracy. Might the U. S. system evolve into a tyranny of the majority?

Published Oct. 2, 2013, in The Guelph Mercury. 

It has been just over two years since the Republican congressional leadership forced U.S. President Barack Obama to blink in an eyeball-to-eyeball game of chicken between these two branches of the American government.

Published Sep. 18, 2013, in The Waterloo Region Record.

Just when it appeared that U.S. President Barack Obama had painted himself into an inescapable corner over Syria's chemical weapons use, an impromptu comment by Secretary of State John Kerry was picked up by the Russians to hand him a lifeline out of the mess that he had created with his indecisiveness.

Published Sep. 7, 2013, in The Waterloo Region Record. 

Some 30 years ago in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, when former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger was asked who he supported, his answer was "both sides."

It was perhaps an unnecessarily lighthearted response to a serious matter, but it's one that might draw a comparison by some to the current Syrian civil war.