Tom Basile marked the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq with an op-ed calling on Americans to “challenge ourselves to look beyond the popular narratives about the mission.” 

Iraq war critics have a bad habit of rushing to “hysterical one-sidedness,” Mr. Basile argues. What they “miss,” he writes, is that “extraordinary and noble work done by hundreds of thousands of brave Americans, military and civilian, who genuinely attempted to forge a better life for the people of Iraq against enormous odds.”

The peace deal reached last week between Middle East rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by Communist China, is a major strategic setback for the U.S., Ilan German writes.

In the Middle East and Africa, “through a mix of deft diplomacy and economic investments, the [People’s Republic of China] has begun to erect what some observers have termed an ‘emerging Middle Eastern kingdom.’ It has also capitalized on America’s receding regional footprint, as successive administrations prioritized other world regions (such as Asia) and topics, such as climate change, over serious Middle Eastern policy. Now, the Saudi-Iranian deal has cemented the PRC as a central player in the region’s political and security dynamics, eclipsing the traditional arbiter of Mideast affairs — the United States,” he writes.

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