by Paul R. Pillar Behind a façade of continuity, the deployment of U.S. armed forces in Syria for the purposes that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described in a speech this week represents a departure from what such forces were… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Accountability in policy debate in the United States is sorely lacking. One reason is the casual use of hypothetical alternative histories and of related assertions that by their nature cannot be proved or disproved. Arguments that… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Don’t be either fooled or relieved by President Trump’s waiving, for now, of nuclear sanctions on Iran, and thus his forgoing of an explicit withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement. Trump still is determined to destroy… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Late this month Russia will host and broker a new round of Syrian peace talks in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. The Sochi talks will be an extension of talks that had earlier taken… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Last week an op-ed appeared in The New York Times under the byline of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with the title “I Am Proud of Our Diplomacy.” The piece did not seem to get much… Continue Reading