Latest Articles

Is a Military Confrontation Between the United States and Iran Becoming Inevitable?

May 15, 2019  •  Carnegie Middle East Center

President Donald Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran has increased economic pressure on Teheran and tensions in the Gulf, but it does not make war inevitable. White House hardliners may argue that enhanced American pressure will either bring about regime change in Iran—their unarticulated goal—or force an end to Iran's aggression toward its neighbors and the United States. Just as the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini eventually relented under pressure and drank the "poisoned chalice" to end the barbaric Iraq-Iran war launched by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the hawks argue, his successor will eventually yield to American pressure.

This is wishful thinking, not a strategy.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

NYU stands up to the Israel-haters

May 10, 2019  •  The New York Post

It's not unusual these days for Israel to be denounced on college campuses as a racist state that should be boycotted for its mistreatment of Palestinians and other violations of human rights. But New York University's response last week to such a call is unusual, and hopeful.

Soon after an NYU department overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging "non-cooperation" with NYU's own satellite campus in Tel Aviv, NYU and 237 of its faculty, including the deans of the schools of business and engineering, signed an online petition denouncing the resolution as a violation of academic freedom. The university also publicly and privately lambasted its own department's action.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Trump sends Iran a message with military moves in the Middle East -- let's hope Iran hears him

May 7, 2019  •  Fox News

Soon after the White House announced Sunday that it was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and Air Force bombers to the Middle East, the Twittersphere erupted with anxious posts about whether the redeployment means that the U.S. is preparing to strike Iran. As evidence, critics have cited both the harsh tone of the message and the identity of the messenger.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Scenes from a Marriage
Imagining the pillow talk of the ultimate power couple

May 3, 2019  •  City Journal

Love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton and her bad-boy husband, former president Bill, have been fixtures in America's political life and cultural zeitgeist for nearly 30 years. After her humiliating loss in 2016 to a man whom most assumed she would defeat easily, Hillary—and yes, even Bill—looked ready to fade into the twilight, but playwright Lucas Hnath was unwilling to let them go. He wrote the first draft of his provocative exploration of their marriage and America's political culture in 2008, just as Hillary seemed poised to win the Democratic presidential nomination. She didn't, of course, but Hnath didn't give up. He first staged the play in Chicago in 2016, though he worried that it might lack dramatic punch, since Hillary was regarded as the inevitable next president.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

For Venezuela, is the moment now?

May 1, 2019  •  Fox News

Venezuela is on the edge. Tuesday's uprising is a make-or-break moment for the opposition's protracted effort to oust disputed President Nicolas Maduro. The odds are against its success, and the Trump administration needs a backup plan in case there is a failure of Operation Libertad (Operation Freedom), as opposition leader Juan Guaido calls it.

The United States has done just about everything it can reasonably do to persuade Maduro to step down peacefully. But Guaido's call Tuesday morning for the military to side with him and for Venezuelans to take the streets took the White House by surprise.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Books by Judith Miller