By Patrick J. Buchanan

Appearing alongside Director David Petraeus before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said of Iran:

“We don’t believe they’ve actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.”

Before the hearing, as James Fallows of The Atlantic reports, Clapper released his “Worldwide Threat Assessment.” It read, “We do not know … if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan

After his fourth-place showing in Florida, Ron Paul, by then in Nevada, told supporters he had been advised by friends that he would do better if only he dumped his views, which have been derided as isolationism.

Not going to do it, said Dr. Paul to cheers. And why should he?

Observing developments in U.S. foreign and defense policy, Paul’s views seem as far out in front of where America is heading as John McCain’s seem to belong to yesterday’s Bush-era bellicosity.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

There still exists a possibility that, come Jan. 20, 2013, we could have a Senate and House, and a president.

But there is also a possibility that a Goldwater-Rockefeller-type family bloodletting could sunder the party and kick it all away.

America is bored with . The young and the minorities are still with him but exhibit none of the excitement or enthusiasm of 2008.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“Events are in the saddle and ride mankind.”

In describing 2011, few cliches seem more appropriate. For in this past year, we Americans seemed to lose control of our destiny, as events seemed to be in the saddle.

While President maneuvered skillfully to retain a fighting chance to be re-elected, the economy showed no signs of returning to the robustness of the Reagan or Clinton years. And Obama is all out of options.

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Returning from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, Defense Secretary dropped some jolting news.

Asked by CBS’s Scott Pelley if could have a nuclear weapon in 2012, Panetta replied: “It would probably be about a year before they could do it. Perhaps a little less. But one proviso, Scott, is that if they have a hidden facility somewhere in that may be enriching fuel.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan

For the Army and Marines who lost 4,500 dead and more than 30,000 wounded, many of them amputees, the second-longest in U.S. history is over. America is coming home from .

On May 1, 2003, on the carrier Abraham Lincoln, the huge banner behind President proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished!”

That was eight years ago. And so, was the mission accomplished?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In August 2008, as the world’s leaders gathered in Beijing for the Olympic games, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, hot-headed and erratic, made his gamble for greatness.

It began with a stunning artillery barrage on Tskhinvali, capital of tiny South Ossetia, a province that had broken free of Tbilisi when Tbilisi broke free of . As Ossetians and Russian peacekeepers fell under the Georgian guns, terrified Ossetians fled into .

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Is a vote for the Republican Party in 2012 a vote for ?

Is a vote for or a vote for yet another unfunded of choice, this time with a nation, , three times as large and populous as ?

Mitt says that if elected he will move carriers into the Persian Gulf and “prepare for .” Newt is even more hawkish. America should continue “taking out” ’s nuclear scientists — i.e., assassinating them — but military action will probably be needed.

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