Commentary / World Apr 24, 2015
A shift in U.K. foreign policy?
The British election in May could produce dramatic outcomes in trans-Atlantic and trans-channel relations.
William Pfaff
For William Pfaff's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Commentary / World Apr 17, 2015
France, U.K.'s right bark louder than they bite
France and Britain's nationalist parties attract great attention because of their dramatic character but are hard to take too seriously.
Commentary / World Apr 10, 2015
Obstacles and opportunities in the Lausanne agreement
The framework agreement reached last week on Iran's nuclear program points the way toward an isolated and disempowered U.S. depending on the choices it makes.
Commentary / World Apr 3, 2015
Putin and the neoconservatives
The national ambitions harbored by Vladimir Putin and American neoconservatives are troublingly similar.
Commentary / World Mar 27, 2015
U.S. foreign policy founders on ignorance and arrogance
If it's true that President Barack Obama is unable to dominate the neoconservative faction in the State Department and the Pentagon, it makes the political nonsense involving Mideast myth-addicted members of the U.S. Congress pale in comparison.
Commentary / World Mar 20, 2015
U.S. alienating European allies
Trans-Atlantic relations are worse than they have been in some years, as Europeans widely attribute the new jihadism, the chaos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, the newly proclaimed Islamic State group, tension with Iran, and the sinister turn of events in Israel/Palestine to American ...
Commentary / World Mar 13, 2015
Ukraine is worst of Obama's many foreign policy disasters
If U.S. President Barack Obama is to be blamed for errors with Libya, the Mideast and especially Ukraine, it is also true that his foreign policies have reflected a consensus in the U.S. governing class and popular opinion alike that America must always be ...
Commentary / World Mar 10, 2015
Stepping back from the edge
There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, which is to leave well enough alone before something really bad happens.
Commentary / World Feb 27, 2015
Netanyahu tars Europe for anti-Semitism of terrorists
As he beats the drum for his Likud's Party re-election in mid-March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely asserts that anti-Semitism is responsible for growing European and American hostility toward Israel.
Commentary / World Feb 20, 2015
Uses, and abuses, of history in the Middle East conflict
There remains in the U.S. an incorrigible conviction that it is the "indispensable" nation, and that it alone can bring peace to nations. And that's done by more intervention and war, splitting nations in civil, tribal and sectarian battles in which the U.S. chooses ...