President Barack Obama initially touted his “historic understanding” with Iran as a transformational diplomatic step toward Middle East peace. Two days or so later, the White House called the “understanding” a “preliminary deal. “ Words matter, or at least they should when the “understanding” allegedly affects a theocratic dictatorship’s ability to obtain and use nuclear […]
Austin Bay
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Austin Bay: Evaluating the Pan-Arab ‘joint army’
A pan-Arab military coalition has begun waging war in Yemen, ostensibly on behalf of deposed Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Is this Arab League-approved “joint army” a credible combat force? That depends on who emerges as the joint army’s central actor and commander. So far, Saudi Arabia has served as the coalition’s most prominent […]
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Austin Bay: Yemen 2015: From success to cesspool
The State Department’s March 21 press release confirming the abrupt retreat of American personnel from Yemen attempts to conceal the magnitude of our latest Middle Eastern debacle. When read with an awareness of Yemen’s geographic import, the violent groups and proxies assaulting its U.S.-backed government and President Barack Obama’s 2014 public testament to Yemen as […]
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Austin Bay: Obama didn’t do diplomacy well
Poles knew September 2009 would be a bitter month. It marked the 70th anniversary of their country’s great geo-political catastrophe, the start of World War 2 and their nation’s imprisonment. The 21st-century bitterness Poles did not expect was President Barack Obama’s shocking Sept. 17, 2009, announcement. To “reset” U.S.-Russia relations, Obama said he had terminated […]
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Austin Bay: Remagen Bridge: A lesson in American initiative
The March 7, 1945, seizure of the Rhine River’s Remagen Bridge by a U.S. Army task force is an outstanding example of individual and organizational initiative and carefully assessed aggressiveness. A lesson in leader intuition, one with application to politics and business as well as battle, lies within the operation’s deep history. The moment of […]
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Austin Bay: Putin benefits from activist’s assassination
On March 3, 2015, several thousand mourners in Moscow attended a memorial service for former Russian deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. Late on the evening of Feb. 27, the 55-year-old Nemtsov and his Ukrainian girlfriend walked across a bridge not far from the Kremlin. As a snowplow passed, an assassin (perfectly positioned) fired four bullets […]
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Austin Bay: Remembering the price paid at Iwo Jima
From Feb. 19, 1945 (when U.S. Marines assaulted its beaches) to March 27 of that year (the day combat officially ceased), the island of Iwo Jima was hell on earth. In 2009 I began writing occasional columns commemorating the 70th anniversary of key World War II battles and events. I dedicated them to the WW2 […]
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Austin Bay: Jordan, Egypt react to Islamic State executions
Islamic State leaders are convinced their organization’s sensationally barbaric execution videos serve two distinct but, from their calculated perspective, useful purposes. Purpose one: The murder videos are recruiting ads. IS leaders believe the videos visually demonstrate their undeterrable will to kill in order to secure and expand radical Islamist power. The videos apparently persuade young, […]
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Austin Bay: Obama’s Crusade reference benefits Islamic State
President Barak Obama didn’t intend to make the Battle of Yarmuk (636 A.D.) a 2015 news item. However, his bizarrely incomplete sketch of the Crusades, delivered last week at a national prayer breakfast, did just that. The president’s media defenders contend he intended to make a justifiable point: Throughout history, people have corrupted religious faith […]
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Austin Bay: Vladimir Putin’s creeping Ukraine invasion continues
Late last week pro-Kremlin separatist militias — aided and very likely led by “green men”— defeated the last band of Ukrainian “Cyborgs” defending Donetsk’s airport. Two years ago the airport was touted as one of Eastern Europe’s most modern air hubs. Today it is, like many neighborhoods in the Donetsk region and villages along the […]