As the Islamic States falls in Syria by David Ignatius

David Ignatius

TABQA, SYRIA

The Islamic State’s headquarters in this city at the western gateway to Raqqa has been crushed like a sandcastle by American bombs. At a dam complex on the Euphrates River where the Islamic State was torturing prisoners and hurling alleged homosexuals from a giant concrete tower, all that’s left of the extremists are militant slogans scrawled on the wall and a pile of trash.

Donald Trump is the American Machiavelli by David Ignatius

David Ignatius

It’s common to describe ruthless or devious politicians as “Machiavellian.” But rarely in the United States have we seen an embodiment of the traits Machiavelli admired quite like Donald Trump, the president-elect.

Go down the list of Trump’s controversial

Russia may be wounded, but it can still bite by David Ignatius

David Ignatius

Whoever wins Tuesday’s presidential election will face an assertive, aggrieved Russia whose risk-taking behavior under President Vladimir Putin is increasingly worrisome to U.S. experts.

Today’s pushy, headstrong Russia presents a paradox: By most measures, it is a country in decline, with a sagging economy, an underdeveloped

Why the Middle East knows not to trust the United States by David Ignatius

David Ignatius

When the United States fights its wars in the Middle East, it has a nasty habit of recruiting local forces as proxies and then jettisoning them when the going gets tough or regional politics intervene.

This pattern of “seduction and abandonment” is one of our least endearing characteristics. It’s one reason the United States is mistrusted in the Middle East. We don’t stick by the people who take risks on our behalf in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere. And now, I fear, this syndrome is

America's election is giving the world some serious anxiety - Washington Post

David Ignatius

     

America's election giving  the world some serious anxiety

                        Making predictions three weeks before the U.S. election is risky, but the likeliest bet right now is that the center will hold in American politics and Hillary Clinton will be elected president. That’s important for lots of reasons, the biggest of which is that it could begin to stabilize a very unsettled world.

Nate Silver, a leading polling guru, projected Monday night that, based on major surveys, the chances of a Clinton victory had increased to 88 percent, up 5 points in a week and 33 points from her low ebb