Peggy Noonan

Thick histories may well be written about how President Obama—a Democrat from the leftward wing of his party, a use-of-force skeptic who campaigned against Iraq as a war of choice—came to involve the U.S. in a third Mideastern war. Much will be made of the regrets of a generation of party leaders that the U.S. […]

I want to step back from the controversy over Libya and take a look at one definition of what foreign policy is, or rather what its broader purposes might be. Then I want to make a small point. The other day I came across an extract from a debate that took place in the British […]

It all seems rather mad, doesn’t it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn’t take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we’re already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we’re restive at home, and no one, really, […]

The biggest takeaway, the biggest foreign-policy fact, of the past decade is this: America has to be very careful where it goes in the world, because the minute it’s there—the minute there are boots on the ground, the minute we leave a footprint—there will spring up, immediately, 15 reasons America cannot leave. The next day […]

I like Donald Rumsfeld. I’ve always thought he was a hard-working, intelligent man. I respected his life in public service at the highest and most demanding levels. So it was with some surprise that I found myself flinging his book against a wall in hopes I would break its stupid little spine. “Known and Unknown,” […]

When you step back and try to get a sense of the larger picture in the battle between the states and their public employee unions, two elements emerge. One seems small but could prove decisive, and the other is big and, if I’m seeing it right, carries significant implications. The seemingly small thing is that […]

I was talking the other day with a new member of the U.S. Senate, and conversation turned to what had surprised him most in his first months on Capitol Hill. He said it was the number of people who still don’t seem to understand that we’re in crisis, that if we don’t move now on […]

There were two big speeches this week, and I mean big as in “Modern political history will remember this.” Together they signal something significant and promising. Oh, that’s a stuffy way to put it. I mean: The governors are rising and are starting to lead. What a relief. It’s like seeing the posse come over […]

So Hosni Mubarak is gone. He’d been finished since Jan. 25, when the Egyptian revolution began. That a broad uprising could spontaneously occur demonstrated that the government could be taken. That it continued and the military didn’t clamp down guaranteed that it would be. The story is primarily and obviously a political one: Pro-democracy forces […]

What an incredible and bizarre Thursday afternoon it must have been in Cairo. Thousands are massed in Tahrir Square, waving banners and flags, dancing and cheering as they await a speech by President Hosni Mubarak. They have been told he will resign. They are overjoyed and eager to act out their joy for each other, […]