Iraq

Whether the growing anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East will solidify into a real counterweight to a potentially nuclear armed Iran remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: The battle with Israel and Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other is heating up.

Turkey's Islamist President and wannabe Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan has destroyed the pretense that Turkey and America are allies. The Trump administration now must defend America’s interests and values from Turkey.

Kurds deserve their own country, but Washington should stay out of any conflicts that result.  Please tell us where you stand by taking our poll on the U.S. role in Kurdish independence.

An independent Kurdish state is in America’s strategic interest in our ongoing proxy war against Iran. Starting with diplomatic recognition and support we should be prepared to render whatever assistance is necessary to preserve Kurdish independence.

Bottom line: The U.S. goal of crushing the ISIS caliphate is almost attained. But if our victory in the war against ISIS leaves Iran in the catbird seat in Baghdad and Damascus, and its corridor from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut secure, is that really a victory? Do we accept that outcome, pack up and go home? Or do we leave our forces in Syria and Iraq and defy any demand from Assad to vacate his country?

The Ayatollah’s regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia are deeply hostile to this country. But Iran does not want war with the United States — for the best of reasons. Iran would be smashed like Iraq, and its inevitable rise, as the largest and most advanced country on the Persian Gulf, would be aborted. President Trump is key. If he does the War Party’s bidding, that will be his legacy, as the Iraq War is the legacy of George W. Bush.

Washington obviously can do little to “fix” any of these nations. But America could at least affirm the principle that governments should protect their people’s lives and dignity.

U.S. officials have never felt comfortable confronting the crime of religious persecution. They have few answers to offer other than pressing unwilling governments to better protect politically unpopular minorities.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first order of business at the State Department should be to eliminate the Fifth Column in his own building by showing the door to the signers of a letter criticizing President Trump’s Executive Order pausing travel from terrorist hotspots to the United States.

Kuwait is one of the freest nations in the Persian Gulf, as well as one of America’s best friends. Yet its “liberalish” governance, as one Kuwaiti colleague described it, ironically impedes the adoption of market-oriented economic reforms necessary for the country’s prosperity.

President Obama is the most unaccomplished man to ever hold the office and has been given an eight-year free pass and never held to account for his failures; while Donald J. Trump hasn't even been sworn in and is already a human pinata for the snowflake right and the radical left.

The neo-con counter to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” seems to be shaping up to be “Make Russia Evil Again.” If President-elect Trump wants to drain the swamp in DC, and formulate a new national security policy focused on winning cyberwarfare battles and eradicating ISIS and militant Islam, he should start by draining Obama’s Pentagon.

Thanks in large measure to Angela Merkel, a Muslim army has successfully crossed the Mediterranean, European culture and nation-states are in full retreat, and Phase Six of the Muslim conquest of the West is well and successfully under way.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has accommodated the Islamic State, allowing passage of men and materiel into Syria and facilitated the sale of oil seized by the violent jihadists. Turkey increasingly thwarts U.S. policy in the Middle East.

We urge CHQ readers to call Congress (the Capitol Switchboard is 1-866-220-0044) to tell your Senators and Representative to oppose funding Obama’s plan to import more jihad to America through the “refugee” resettlement program.

Neither party establishment is prepared to advance a strategy for victory, neither party establishment is prepared to successfully “wage peace.” Only Donald Trump was prepared to say that endless war is not just political folly, but an indecent sacrifice of American lives and treasure.

If “I don’t remember” was Hillary Clinton’s most common answer to the FBI during the notorious softball interview that led the agency to give her a pass on the criminal charges of which she is so obviously guilty, “that was a mistake” was the first and perhaps most common answer she gave moderator Matt Lauer during last night’s “Commander in Chief” forum.

Washington should not be isolated from the world, but it should stop attempting to forcibly transform the world. In Turkey the U.S. has found itself forced to embrace a man who cannot be trusted to support people’s liberty at home or fight Islamic radicalism abroad. So why is America still supporting him?

Subsidizing prosperous, populous allies and attempting to remake failed states provides little benefit to most Americans, who do the dying and paying. Hillary Clinton’s foreign support actually reinforces Donald Trump’s point: the need for an international policy that advances the interests of the American people.

There is much in America about which to be concerned, even anguished. Yet traveling the world reminds one just how special America remains.