In the months since I released the first episode of my Rise & Fall podcast, focusing on Islamic totalitarianism, there have been several terrorist attacks around the world perpetrated by Islamic totalitarians.
In this talk, Elan Journo explores how today’s widespread acceptance of determinism leaves many people unable to grasp what a truly self-interested foreign policy in the Middle East would consist of.
I applaud Will Wilkinson’s essay at Vox.com criticizing the Trump administration’s view of the jihadist threat, but I can offer only one cheer, not three. Wilkinson tries to put the threat in perspective, and although he makes some important points, he exhibits a mile-wide blind spot. Thus, in his own way, Wilkinson fails to understand the Islamist menace, what enables it, and the urgent necessity of confronting it.
What events led to the Syrian Civil War? Who are the good and bad guys? Should America intervene? And how should we judge President Trump’s response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons? Find out in this episode of The Yaron Brook Show.
Is North Korea a threat? And if so, what, if anything should we do about it? Is it, for example, in our rational self-interest to fund South Korea’s military defense? In this episode of The Yaron Brook Show, Brook offers his perspective.
Was President Trump right or wrong in deciding to bomb a Syrian airfield in retaliation for the government’s use of chemical weapons against citizens? When a similar question arose in 2013 on President Obama’s watch, Ayn Rand Institute executive chairman Yaron Brook recorded this prescient video, questioning whether the use of chemical weapons threatens American interests.
Here’s a postscript to my new piece at The Hill today, where I argue that U.S. policy toward Egypt needs to be put on an honest footing. Instead of playing down its authoritarianism, we need confront Egypt about its violation of individual rights.
After the attack outside Parliament in London on March 22, four people died and more than 40 were injured. Heading toward the Parliament buildings, the assailant drove at high speed on the sidewalk of Westminster Bridge, mowing down pedestrians. Then he got out of the car wielding a knife, sprinted inside the Parliament gates, and managed to stab to death one policeman, before being overpowered. The Islamic State has praised the 52-year-old killer, who was born and raised in England, as one of its soldiers.
Elan Journo, the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of Policy Research and foreign policy expert, recently gave a wide-ranging video interview to the student-run YouTube channel Objectivist Discussions.
Yesterday, The American Spectator published Elan Journo’s reply to Arnold Steinberg’s contention that Donald Trump’s “America first” foreign policy is “an unintended reincarnation of Ayn Rand.”
