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Donald Trump

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In 54 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus, a rich, ambitious Roman businessman, got himself named governor of the wealthy province of Syria. Crassus had been sharing power in Rome with Pompey and Julius Caesar. Call him the Donald Trump of his day. Crassus decided to invade neighboring Parthia, which is today Turkey and Iran. At the... Read More
This week’s presidential debate made me both horrified and dismayed. Here was the world’s most powerful nation trying to decide which elderly candidate to select as its presidential candidate. Maybe the best expression is ‘cringe-worthy.’ Joe Biden was left looking feeble and halting before the bombastic Trump. At least Trump made some sense in what... Read More
Watching the US Navy build a temporary pier in Gaza was a pathetic display of ineptitude and helplessness. It was a crass attempt by the Biden administration to deflect the storm of worldwide criticism over its encouragement of Israel’s far right government to crush Gaza to rubble. The pier fell apart due to poor construction... Read More
US President Joe Biden has declared himself a `war president.’ He has ordered two US aircraft carriers, advanced missile systems and 2,000 Marines to the Mideast. It’s full-force war fever in Washington. Does this seem like overkill considering Hamas has not much more than lightly armed teenagers with AK-47 rifles and some home-made bombs? Of... Read More
A few billion here, a few billion there – and suddenly we are looking at real money. Even more important, real inflation. Governments all over have been spending like drunken sailors in a desperate attempt to counteract the ruinous effects of the Covid pandemic and resulting closures. We have seen panic spending accelerate as governments... Read More
I’ve seen many coups in my decades as a journalist and connoisseur of exotic, turbulent places. The most exciting coup occurred in Paris under President Charles de Gaulle as I waited at Place de la Concorde with heavily armed paramilitary police as we prepared for an attack by elite paratroopers from French Algeria. Amid crackling... Read More
Most billionaires spend their money on mansions, yachts, airplanes and much younger wives. But not so casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who died in Las Vegas on January 11th, aged 87. Adelson rose from humble origins. He used his $33 billion plus gambling fortune to buy governments in order to fulfill his passion for Zionism. He... Read More
The mob of yahoos and cretins that broke into the United States capitol this week was not a spontaneous act of violence. Quite the contrary, it was a carefully planned criminal uprising designed to terrorize congress and prevent the election of president-elect Joe Biden. It was clear orders had been given to the local security... Read More
All hail America’s voters. After an excruciating election, they appear to have edged out of power the man who wanted to be king, Donald Trump, and put into the White House an amiable, old pol who appears likely to soon be replaced by his vice-presidential running mate, half-Jamaican, half-Indian Kamala Harris. This week’s election should... Read More
‘Hubris’ is an ancient Greek term for pride and ego supplanting common sense. Covid-19 denier Donald J. Trump is a classic example. He and wife Melania are now isolated, suffering from what are described as ‘mild symptoms’ of the Covid-19 virus. At 73 years old and 60 lbs. overweight, Trump’s Covid symptoms may be serious... Read More
The Trump administration, desperate for some good news, just manufactured its own news by confecting a ‘peace’ deal between Israel and a bunch of pipsqueak Arab monarchies - just in time for November US elections. The Gulf monarchies – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - that signed this agreement are so frightened of neighboring... Read More
resident Donald Trump is not always in control of his runaway tongue or his impetuous nature. So it’s entirely possible he could have dismissed fallen American soldiers as ‘losers,’ as the media and political opponents now claim. But I strongly doubt that Trump knew anything about the bloody 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood at which... Read More
Take an injection of a strong disinfectant like Dettol or Listerine and call me in the morning.” President Donald Trump has clearly gone off the rails with his crazy suggestion that the public might try injecting potent disinfectants to combat COVID-19. He sounds increasingly like the late Rev. Jim Jones of toxic Kool-Aid fame and... Read More
Washington-based military think tanks constantly warn of possible attacks by the wicked North Koreans who have a large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver to North America. So do Britain, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, India and Israel. The US still has a very large, lethal arsenal of chemical and biological... Read More
This is one of the most important maxims of military history. Every young officer should have it drilled into his head. Yet the confused administration of President Donald Trump has been doing just this as it fights an invisible foe no one expected. Trump, who dodged US military service using phony doctor certificated about his... Read More
President Donald Trump’s 36-hour whirlwind visit to India this past week was designed to show Americans just how adored abroad their president really is. Unluckily for Trump, his campaign stop at this behemoth nation of 1.3 or 1.4 billion proved a fiasco. First came the terrifying Chinese coronavirus that so far has killed less people... Read More
Good work, Democrats! In the Las Vegas debate, you blasted every target but Donald Trump. Instead of quivering in his Gucci loafers, the man who would be king was left dancing on air. The man who should have been king, newcomer Mike Bloomberg, was left looking like a beaten-up cigar store Indian. He had not... Read More
The US Senate, long the lap dog of the man who would be king, President Donald Trump, appears to have finally remembered its proper constitutional role. Last week, the Senate voted 55/45 for a new bipartisan War Powers Act to constrain military action against Iran. The Congress voted a similar act. Both are designed to... Read More
In 1916, as World War I raged on, a British diplomat, Mark Sykes, met with his French counterpart from the Quai d’Orsay, Monsieur Picot, and signed an agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire once victory was achieved. The heart of the Mideast – Palestine, Syria and Iraq – was divided between Britain and France. Italy... Read More
The US drone strike at Baghdad airport that killed Iran’s top commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and a senior leader of Iraq’s Shia militia, has set the Mideast on fire. The Trump administration, which authorized the assassination, called it a ’pre-emptive’ strike. Iran branded it ‘outright murder.’ Soleimani was Iran’s second most powerful figure and a... Read More
Citizens of France. To arms! Man the ramparts. The American barbarians are coming. They shall not pass! Le Trump’s threat to France’s splendid wines and Roquefort cheese are the gravest menace France has faced since the Germans invaded this fair land in 1914. Burgundy wines and France’s 300 fromages form the very soul of la... Read More
What a mess. The imperial cooks in Washington have turned poor Syria into a poison pit of warring factions, with disastrous results for all. Henry Kissinger once quipped that it is more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy. A good example is how Washington used the Kurds in Syria to fight ISIS and then... Read More
A crime worthy of impeachment? Not really, just another unethical, improper, crass act by President Donald Trump. Many Democrats are cock-a-hoop over the idea of impeaching Trump. They would bed down with the Devil just to get rid of the boor in the White House. But unless really damning information emerges regarding Trump’s efforts to... Read More
According to the great military thinker, Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, ‘the object of war is not victory. It is to achieve political goals.’ Too bad President Donald Trump does not read books. He has started economic wars against China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela without any clear strategic objective beyond inflating his ego as the... Read More
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Turkey has just called Donald Trump’s bluff by going ahead with the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. The outrage in Washington is volcanic. Trump is vowing to rain fire and brimstone sanctions down on the disobedient Turks. The S-400 is Russia’s premier anti-air missile. It is believed highly effective against all forms of aircraft... Read More
President Donald Trump’s attempt to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to the Palestinians – using Gulf Arab oil money – has so far been a resounding failure, as was widely predicted. The so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ turned out to be a shabby swindle. I watched Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, deliver the first part of his... Read More
Who is attacking oil tankers in the Gulf between Oman and Iran? So far, the answer is still a mystery. The US, of course, accuses Iran. Iran says it’s the US or its local allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Magnetic mines are blamed for the damage, though there have been claims of... Read More
President Donald Trump claimed this week that he does not want war with Iran. If he really believes this, the president ought to look into what his subordinates are doing. Among their bellicose actions are deployment of the ‘Abraham Lincoln CVN-72’ carrier task force to the coast of Iran, massing a strike package of B-52... Read More
Is it just a coincidence that TV networks are re-running old ‘Dirty Harry’ films just as a powerful US Naval armada and Air Force B-52 bombers are headed for what could be a clash with Iran? Here we go again with the ‘good guys’ versus the ‘bad guys,’ and ‘make my day.’ Maybe it’s more... Read More
The world is still reeling in horror from the deadly Sri Lanka bombings that may have been the work of Islamic State madmen. Poor Sri Lanka has suffered so much after three decades of civil war and communal strife. We weep for this beautiful and once gentle nation. But behind the horror in Sri Lanka,... Read More
Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior. I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week – provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this... Read More
President Donald Trump’s air trip to Vietnam cost taxpayers $5,695,000 just for the president’s flying Taj Mahal. Plus millions more for his retainers, the presidential limo, hotel rooms, meals, security details and only Ho Chi Minh knows what else. For what? A nice photo op and a cheery dinner for the two leaders in Hanoi.... Read More
President Donald Trump and the neocon sofa samurais who surround him seem determined to pick a fight with China or Russia, or both at the same time. Later this month, the US and China are due to try to end their long-running trade war which has damaged the economies of both nations. At the heart... Read More
`Good fences make good neighbors,’ wrote American poet Robert Frost. But not according to President Donald Trump whose proposed Great Wall is supposed to protect the nation from hordes of rabid, murderous, drug crazed rapists and unwhites from south of the border. I’m a life-long student of military architecture, with a particular passion for modern... Read More
President Trump has done the right thing with regard to America’s troop deployment in Syria. Trump ordered the 2,000 US troops based in Syria to get out and come home. Neocons and the US war party are having apoplexy even though there are some 50,000 US troops spread across the rest of the Mideast. The... Read More
Asked if President Donald Trump’s highly critical tweets about French president Emmanuel Macron were unpleasant and inelegant, Macron elegantly replied, `you summed up everything.’ Yes, they were unpleasant and inelegant, to put it mildly. Worse, Trump’s tweet barrage came on the same day France was commemorating the murder of 130 Parisians by gunmen in 2015.... Read More
This was hell week in New York City. Traffic was paralyzed from one end of the narrow island to the other as bigwigs and their entourages flocked to the city for the fall opening of the United Nations. Making matters worse, President Donald Trump chose the occasion to lambaste nations he does not like in... Read More
Springtime in Korea. Peace and love have erupted all over the mountainous peninsula as the leaders of the two rival nations seek to end the nearly seven decades of hostility between them. One can’t underestimate the passionate longing felt by most Koreans on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) for some form of reunification... Read More
Good work Mr. President! You have now managed to lay the groundwork for a grand Chinese-Russian alliance. The objective of intelligent diplomacy is to divide one’s foes, not to unite them. This epic blunder comes at a time when the US appears to be getting ready for overt military action in Syria against Russian and... Read More
President Trump keeps vowing to create more jobs in America. But his actions often speak differently. The most egregious example was Trump’s cancellation of the multi-national Iran nuclear treaty that had been welcomed by the world as a major step to Mideast denuclearization. In abrogating the international treaty signed by the US, Britain, France, Germany,... Read More
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President Donald Trump and his neocon advisors have been trying to provoke a war with Iran and Syria for many months. The neocons are echoing Cato the Elder’s cry, ‘delenda est Carthago!’. Iran must be destroyed. So far, Tehran and its ally Damascus have refused to respond to US naval and air incursions or Israel’s... Read More
Comedy? Disaster? Mental disorder? Hearing loss? Even days after President Donald Trump’s bizarre appearance in Helsinki alongside a cool, composed President Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to tell what happened. But it certainly was entertaining. In case anyone in the universe missed this event, let me recap. Trump met in private with Putin, which drove bureaucrats... Read More
President Donald Trump says most summit meetings are a waste of time. He’s so right. Most meetings of every kind are a waste of time and energy. The president was certainly right about last week’s NATO summit in Brussels. At least, he livened it up by openly blasting his NATO allies once again for not... Read More
`We are the schmucks’ thundered President Donald Trump, using a favorite New York City Yiddish term for penis. The object of Trump’s wrath at his Make America Great Again’ rally in Great Falls, Montana was the craven, stingy European members of NATO, only 16 of 22 members are on budget for their US-commanded military spending.... Read More
Last week’s Economist Magazine won the day with the best-ever headline about the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit: `Kim Jong Won!’ That said it all. Just out of hospital, I was in no shape to compete with the great Economist or its very witty headline writers. But after watching a week of post Singapore summit between Great... Read More
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It’s got to be either one of the stupidest acts that I can recall or a very wicked plan by Washington neocons to sabotage Korean peace talks. How else to describe the decision by Big Brother USA and junior sidekick South Korea to stage major air force exercises on North Korea’s border. The prickly North... Read More
Israel launched waves of air attacks and ground shelling on a score of alleged Iranian military positions in Syria this week. Was this a big step forward in the plan by Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his ally Donald Trump to provoke a major war with Iran? It certainly looks so. The US, Saudi Arabia... Read More
Behind President Donald Trump’s bluster and threats over Syria, powerful forces are pushing the US towards war with Russia and Syria: the neocons and the military industrial complex. For a candidate who once proposed a normal relationship with Russia, just peace in the Mideast, and an end to America’s foreign wars Donald Trump is now... Read More
Considering that a nuclear conflict over North Korea appeared imminent in recent weeks, the winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, South Korea, is a most welcome distraction – and might even deter a major war on the peninsula. The highlight of the games was the arrival of Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korea’s ruler, Kim... Read More
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Henry Kissinger rightly noted that it’s often more dangerous being an ally of the United States than its enemy. The latest victim of this sad truism is Pakistan, a loyal ally of the US since the dawn of our era. President Donald Trump’s visceral hatred of Muslims (never mind what kind, or why, or where)... Read More
Eric Margolis
About Eric Margolis

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia.

He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, Lew Rockwell. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

His internet column www.ericmargolis.com reaches global readers on a daily basis.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow.

A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

A native New Yorker, he maintains residences in Toronto and New York, with frequent visits to Paris.


Personal Classics
“America’s strategic and economic interests in the Mideast and Muslim world are being threatened by the agony in...
Bin Laden is dead, but his strategy still bleeds the United States.
Egyptians revolted against American rule as well as Mubarak’s.
A menace grows from Bush’s Korean blind spot.
Far from being a model for a “liberated” Iraq, Afghanistan shows how the U.S. can get bogged down Soviet-style.