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The US Must Return to a Muscular Foreign Policy
Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released Nov. 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
JNS.org – Much ink has been spilled over the recent Houthi attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and U.S. infrastructure in the Middle East. But not enough people are asking the right question: Why are these attacks occurring in the first place?
Since the first day of the Biden administration, the U.S. has shifted from a muscular foreign policy to one based on soft power. The administration de-listed the Houthis as a terrorist group, promised to restart negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal and executed a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. In addition, the White House decided to move away from traditional U.S. allies in the region. For example, during the 2020 presidential campaign, President Joe Biden promised to make American ally Saudi Arabia a “pariah.”
The administration’s foreign policy has had disastrous results on a global scale. For the first time since World War II, we have a major land war raging in Europe; Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history, committed by an Iranian proxy; as noted above, the Houthis are directly attacking world trade; and Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has just fired a missile that struck very close to the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq.
Biden’s soft power strategy is simply a continuation of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, which was also a disastrous failure. For example, in 2012, President Barack Obama made his famous “red-line” threat to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, saying military action would follow any use of poison gas against Syrian civilians. Assad went on to gas his citizens and Obama did nothing in response. Assad correctly realized he could do more or less whatever he wanted and proceeded to flout the U.S. in the Syrian civil war that rages to this day.
Under President Donald Trump, this failed policy changed. When the Iranians fired missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq, Trump had IRGC head and arch-terrorist Qassem Soleimani assassinated. The media and foreign policy establishments wrung their collective hands, shrieking that this would destabilize the entire Middle East. Needless to say, it didn’t. In fact, Soleimani’s execution and Trump’s unequivocal support for Israel and the Saudis backed Iran into a corner. Under Trump, the Iranians never mustered a response to the Soleimani assassination because of the simple fear that the U.S. and its allies in the region would take drastic action in response.
This foreign policy doctrine also enabled the effective use of soft power. In particular, it resulted in the Abraham Accords. Once thought to be impossible, the U.S. was able to negotiate normalization agreements between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors. This realigned the Middle East in a manner that placed even more pressure on the Iranian regime.
Trump’s foreign policy was one of the most successful aspects of his presidency. Yet the media kept telling its audience that Trump would lead the U.S. to the brink of war. In fact, his muscular approach made war less likely. No such conflicts broke out, Iran was deterred and Russia did not invade any of its neighbors for the first time since President George H.W. Bush was in office.
If it wants to reverse the Biden administration’s failures, the U.S. must start flexing its muscles again. This does not demand American boots on the ground, as Trump’s success demonstrated. Nonetheless, the only effective tools of foreign policy are strength and deterrence. To keep ourselves and our allies secure, we must return to that policy by abandoning appeasement and fear.
The post The US Must Return to a Muscular Foreign Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration’s actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a nationwide temporary restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders signed by US President Donald Trump in the first month of his term.
The lawsuit comes after the detention of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old permanent US resident of Palestinian descent, whose arrest sparked protests this month.
Justice Department lawyers have argued that the US government is seeking Khalil’s removal because Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reasonable grounds to believe his activities or presence in the country could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Rubio on Friday said the United States will likely revoke visas of more students in the coming days.
Trump vowed to deport activists who took part in protests on US college campuses against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza following the October 2023 attack by the Palestinian terrorists.
The ADC lawsuit was filed on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who say their activism and support of the Palestinian people “has put them at serious risk of political persecution.”
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to preserve our most fundamental constitutional protections. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all persons within the United States, without exception,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the ADC.
Chris Godshall-Bennett, the group’s legal director, said the litigation seeks immediate and long-term relief “to protect international students from any unconstitutional overreach that stifles free expression and deters them from fully engaging in academic and public discourse.”
The lawsuit centers on three Cornell University plaintiffs: a British-Gambian national and PhD student with a student visa; a US citizen PhD student working on plant science; and a US citizen novelist, poet, and professor in the Department of Literatures in English.
The post Rights Group Files Lawsuit to Block Trump Deportations of Anti-Israel Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week

Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, that he will bring a vote before his government to dismiss him next week.
The post Netanyahu Informs Shin Bet Chief to Vote on His Dismissal Next Week first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes

Newly recruited fighters who joined a Houthi military force intended to be sent to fight in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, march during a parade in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 2, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
i24 News – The Houthis claimed on Sunday that they targeted the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and other vessels in the northern Red Sea with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone. Military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that the US-led attacks against the Houthis on Saturday comprised of more than 47 airstrikes on seven governorates, with the death toll expected to rise.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to target all American warships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea in retaliation to the aggression against our country,” Saree said, vowing the Houthis “will continue to impose a naval blockade on the Israeli enemy and ban its ships in the declared zone of operations until aid and basic needs are delivered to the Gaza Strip.”
The post Houthis Claim to Attack US Aircraft Carrier, Retaliating for Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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