Outside the Beltway

Ben Carson doesn’t seem to know much about foreign policy or history. And he doesn’t belong on anyone’s list of serious Presidential candidates.

The gang calling itself the Islamic State has destroyed another historical site.

Iraqi army and Iranian army in joint offensive to retake Tikrit.

The most widely honored General from the Iraq and Afghanistan War has plead guilty to sharing classified information with his mistress.

Polling indicates that the American public opposes the GOP position on DHS funding, but that’s unlikely to change many minds on Capitol Hill.

The Atlantic has a fascinating cover story by Graeme Wood titled “What ISIS Really Wants.”

ISIS apparently now has a foothold in Libya, and is making inroads in Yemen.

Yet another attack on religious freedom in Europe.

Daniel Larison is far less ambivalent about our war on ISIL than me.

Most in the international relations community are not amused by the president’s National Security Strategy.

President Obama will ask Congress to authorize a war he started six months ago.

Pope Francis continues his world tour and has issued a paradox from his private jet.

Their editor and nine colleagues dead, their offices destroyed, the newspaper is not missing a beat.

Some are criticizing the President for not going to Paris for yesterday’s rally.

The terrorism wave that began with the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices has not ended with the killing of the perpetrators. A follow-on attack has occurred in Germany and there are reports of “sleeper cells” being activated in France.

The men responsible for the Charlie Hebdo massacre are dead, but the problems for France, and the rest of Europe, may just be at the beginning.

The terror attack in Paris seems likely to undercut GOP efforts to use the DHS budget to attack the President’s immigration policies.

At least 11 are dead and 10 wounded in an attack on free expression.

There’s not a whole lot the United States can do to respond effectively and proportionally to North Korea’s hacking attack against Sony.

President Obama criticized Sony for backing down, and said that the U.S. would respond to North Korea’s cyber attack “at a place and time we choose,”

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on C.I.A. torture, some have suggested that eight years of Jack Bauer helped make torture more acceptable to the American public.

The U.S. Government has formally charged North Korea with responsibility for the hacking attack on Sony. How to respond to that attack is a more complicated question.

With major theater chains having pulled out, Sony bowed to the inevitable, but now there appears to be proof that a foreign power is behind the Sony hacking attacks and threats of violence.

The resumption of diplomatic relations between U.S. and Cuba, and expansion of some commercial trade ties, is historic but it’s only the first step toward the goal of ending an outdated embargo.

An American freed from captivity, and potentially huge changes in America’s diplomatic and trade relationship with Cuba.

Hackers who have divulged embarrassing secrets from deep within Sony Pictures are now threatening violence if a film about a plot to kill Kim Jong Un is released.

A day of terror at a school in Pakistan.

Was Man Haron Monis a terrorist, or just a lone nut who had latched on to the rhetoric of ISIS to justify his own delusions? In the end, it hardly matters.

The “ticking time bomb scenario” is a TV trope and, therefore, is a terrible guide for making policy.

Vice-President Cheney’s amoral defense of torture has come to define how most conservatives view the issue, and that’s a problem.

A hostage crisis has been unfolding overnight at a cafe in Sydney, Australia that has apparent links to international terrorism.

What now?

A dark and regrettable time in American history is finally seeing the light of day.

The next President will have a profound ability to shape the future of the Supreme Court, but that is unlikely to be the most important issue on voters minds in 2016.

A critic of the imperial presidency becomes an imperial president.

The shocking has become routine. We’re no safer because of it.

The House Intelligence Committee has concluded that the conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11/2012 attack in Benghazi are not supported by the evidence. That’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind, though.

The idea that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists is simply not historically accurate, so should we be reconsidering the policy of not negotiating with ISIS for the release of Western hostages?

The latest ISIS video is horrible and barbaric but we should not take the bait they are offering before considering the consequences of our actions going forward.