LYNNE O’DONNELL

Dec 6, 2024 | thespectator.com | Ben Domenech |Daniel DePetris |LYNNE O’DONNELL |Stephen MIller |Stephen Miller

A phenomenon that will likely be with us throughout the second term of Donald Trump as president is a dynamic of left-right crazy that will foment anxiety and desperation with ludicrous speed. Here’s the way the ouroboros tangles: a right-wing voice indicates that Trump is about to do something crazy in a positive sense. A left-wing voice responds with anxious fear that this crazy step is about to be taken in a negative sense.

Dec 6, 2024 | thespectator.com | Daniel DePetris |Ross Anderson |Deborah Ross |LYNNE O’DONNELL

The United States only has one president at a time. Until January 20, that’s Joe Biden. But President-elect Donald Trump and his skeleton foreign policy team are waiting in the wings, plotting policy behind the scenes on issues — Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, Middle East peace — that have stymied the Biden administration for the last year. In fact, Trump is already influencing the respective calculations of allies, partners and adversaries before he even steps foot in the Oval Office.

Dec 5, 2024 | thespectator.com | James R. Snell |Juan P. Villasmil |LYNNE O’DONNELL |Charles Lister

Provincial capitals falling before an unexpected advance. Military units allegedly defecting, deserting or switching sides. Talk of a coup in Damascus. The Syria of 2012 is the Syria of 2024. For years this was a so-called “frozen conflict.” The front lines did not move, no matter how many artillery and aerial attacks there were on civilians in the country’s north. The maps did not change, though dozens of people at a minimum were killed in fighting every week.

Dec 5, 2024 | thespectator.com | Edward Howell |Juan P. Villasmil |LYNNE O’DONNELL |Gavin Mortimer

Had you have taken a direct flight from London to Seoul yesterday afternoon, by the time you would have landed you might have been none the wiser that anything had happened at all. At near midnight South Korean time, President Yoon Suk-yeol imposed martial law across the so-called “land of the morning calm.” Only six hours later it was subsequently, and pointedly, revoked.

Dec 5, 2024 | thespectator.com | Juan P. Villasmil |LYNNE O’DONNELL |Gavin Mortimer |Kate Andrews

I represented the United States at the sixth Youth and Democracy in the Americas Summit at the Organization of American States, or OAS, last month. Most Latin Americans know this organization well, though most here in the US don’t. It is the premier regional political forum, the region’s European Union, a sort of mini-UN. When tyrants steal elections and jail journalists, the OAS becomes the center of the spectacle. It has a reputation for defending liberty.