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Cruz embraces the dark side of Reagan’s legacy By John Bradshaw, NSN Executive Director The Hill | Feb. 9, 2016 Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) continuing infatuation with dictators reflects a long and dangerous tradition among conservative politicians. Cruz has recently expressed his admiration for Egypt’s leader Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi’s hardline rule, saying that while al-Sisi “may not be a champion of democracy” he has kept the Muslim Brotherhood in line. He has also defended the legitimacy of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, pined for the days when Muammar Qaddafi ruled Libya, and regretted the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Cruz justifies his endorsement of these odious regimes by claiming that they are a bulwark against terrorism. Substitute “communism” for “terrorism” and Cruz’s formulation becomes indistinguishable from… Read More ›

The GOP’s Unfortunate Neglect of the Syrian Refugee Crisis By Sam Davidoff-Gore December 2015   All of the Republican presidential candidates have called for some form of escalation of attacks against the Islamic State in Syria, whether it be the creation of a regional ground force, a carpet bombing campaign, or a major U.S. troop deployment. For all the candidates’ stated concerns about refugees, these proposals, which include calls to loosen the rules of engagement that protect civilian populations, ignore their humanitarian consequences: any escalation will increase the flow of Syrian refugees to the already overwhelmed countries of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. But listening to the candidates, one would think that there is no refugee crisis except for the population fleeing to Europe and the… Read More ›

A Bureaucratic Failure, Not a Scandal A BUREAUCRATIC FAILURE, NOT A SCANDAL John Bradshaw, NSN Executive Director January 19, 2016 | USA News As a former foreign service officer who served in several small U.S. posts overseas, the 2012 attack at the Benghazi facility had a particular resonance for me. But from the beginning, it was clear to me that this was not a political scandal, but the tragic outcome of two interacting forces: bureaucratic inertia at the State Department that led to chronic inadequate security for U.S. posts, and the propensity of foreign service officers to continually push against the boundaries of the security envelope. The various investigations of the attack, including the Accountability Review Board chaired by former U.S. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, all concluded… Read More ›

Saudi Arabia Vs. Iran… Here’s Why January 4, 2016 | The Big Picture RT Multiple Middle Eastern states have ended diplomatic ties with Iran after tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran rapidly escalated this weekend. John Bradshaw, NSN’s Executive Director, joins Thom Hartman to dicucss what it means for the on-going conflicts in the Middle East – and what it means for the future of diplomacy in the region.   To watch the original interview posting, click here. Read More ›

Hyperbole is not a Strategy December 18, 2015 While all the candidates on the Republican debate stage in Las Vegas criticized Democrats on national security issues, very few of them presented anything resembling a clear strategy for tackling the threats facing the United States. Instead, they substituted tough talk, threats, and fearmongering for strategy, showing that they know how to scare people, not solve problems. Jeb Bush thinks we need “to destroy ISIS before it destroys us.” By saying that, Jeb Bush showed that he has no idea what kind of threat ISIS is or how to combat it. If every ISIS combatant assembled in one place, their roughly 30,000 fighters would be fewer than the total number of soldiers in a two U.S. Army… Read More ›

NSN Signs Letter Urging Funding for the IAEA December 17, 2015 Nuclear Watchdog Organization needs Funding to Effectively Monitor Iran Dear Members of Congress, We write to you regarding the crucial need to fully fund the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the watchdog organization responsible for overseeing the implementation of the nuclear agreement between the United States, its negotiating partners, and Iran. The IAEA is responsible for verifying Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricts Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for economic sanctions relief related to its nuclear program. Through an unprecedented system of intrusive inspections and safeguards, the IAEA will monitor Iran’s nuclear program and ensure it serves strictly peaceful purposes. The Director General of the IAEA has estimated… Read More ›

Donald Trump Is Helping the Terrorists Win By Steven Simon and NSN Advisory Board Member Daniel Benjamin December 15, 2015 | POLITICO American politics are undermining American national security. In their jockeying for the Republican presidential nomination, GOP contenders—Donald Trump above all—have managed to exacerbate dramatically the two U.S. weaknesses most likely to erode our country’s safety: fear and Islamophobia. The United States has made tremendous progress in the fight against terrorism since September 11. Yet it has also become all too clear that we are short of the kind of societal resilience that is essential for our success in fighting terrorism. Beyond that, we lack a shared recognition of the importance of the American Muslim community in preventing the spread of extremism. In recent weeks,… Read More ›

The paranoid style in Islamophobic politics J. Dana Stuster, NSN Policy Analyst December 14, 2015 | THE HILL When Donald Trump issued a statement recently calling on the U.S. government to bar Muslims, including U.S. citizens, from entering the United States, the condemnation came swift, as though there was still some line of good taste or ethics Trump had only just crossed. The critics are right, of course: Trump is a narcissist, a fascist, a demagogue with a third-grade vocabulary and a three-year-old’s understanding of the constitution. Which makes him an easy scapegoat for the Islamophobia that’s migrated from the far-right fringe of the political discourse to the mainstream. But Trump is a symptom, not a cause. It’s not enough to condemn Trump when his hateful… Read More ›

NSN 2016 Update: Disqualified – It’s Not Just Trump December 11, 2015 While the media has churned over Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, they’ve neglected the extent to which his rivals have advocated similarly unconstitutional, irresponsible policies. If Donald Trump’s remarks disqualify him from the presidency, his rivals are similarly disqualified. Donald Trump’s latest Islamophobic salvo—calling for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States—was so awful that the White House said it “disqualifies him from being president.” But despite their frantic attempts to distance themselves from Trump after his comments, his fellow candidates espouse the same ideas using only slightly less appalling rhetoric. So if Trump is disqualified for saying “no Muslims allowed,” why doesn’t Jeb’s “Christians… Read More ›

THE SPEECH OBAMA SHOULD HAVE GIVEN Tara Sonenshine, NSN Advisory Board December 8, 2015 | THE HILL President Obama was right to lay out the strategy for defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and to explain his policy. Full stop. But we confront a bigger problem than just ISIS, which the president understated: The temptation to turn fear into paralysis and forget the lessons of history. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and an increasing number of supporters like the logic of keeping out people whose backgrounds, ideas, values, religions and other defining characteristics we don’t like and whom we are afraid of. It’s a tempting theory. Just cordon off people and ideas behind big walls and tight borders and all will be well.… Read More ›