A consideration of dirty work, the people who dream of doing it, and what it means for everyone else

The assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is a reminder of how badly the U.S. needs a new approach to Iran. Is Biden up to the task?

The president was always too dense to develop a coherent foreign policy. Now the secretary of state is using these final weeks in power to cement his own legacy.

Countless lives in America, Iran, and Iraq depend on leaders’ willingness to put down the sabers and cooperate.

Why our foreign policymakers can’t quit interventionism

Can we avoid the pitfalls of 2003 to build a broadly popular anti-war movement?

Other targets of Trump's strikes were “bad dudes” … as well as recipients of American payoffs in the Iraq War.

Trump's threat to destroy Iranian cultural sites is a dark national tradition, with the desecration of sacred tribal sites offering the blueprint.

As the United States staggers toward war, it will try to draw troops from the same poor, rural neighborhoods it always has.

But beyond this week’s false headlines, Trump’s double-dealings and war threats have given Tehran every reason to develop a bomb.

The Soleimani assassination and its aftermath suggest that America's top diplomat is really the viceroy of its national security establishment.

Much of the party, including nearly all its presidential candidates, is still scared to categorically reject war.

The fatal strike against Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani has destabilized the world, endangered Americans, and thrilled Republican war hawks.

Trump's withdrawal from Syria is consistent with his predecessors' treatment of the ethnic minority as a geopolitical pawn.

His dim tweets and rash threats have pinned the U.S. in a corner with Tehran.

Lessons from a 2016 naval crisis that could have sunk the nuclear deal and opened a conflict, but didn’t.

As tensions rise, an unprecedented military briefing by a hawkish secretary of state throws the chain of command into doubt.

Jim Mattis was supposed to restrain Trump. He failed.

They've been capitulating to Trump for two years now. The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi isn't likely to change that.

The Israeli prime minister said the Iran deal "is based on lies.” Of course it is, says nuclear expert James Acton—but the U.S. knew that.