AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Michael Hirsh

Michael Hirsh is chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh previously served as the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington bureau. He was also Newsweek’s Washington web editor and authored a weekly column for Newsweek.com, “The World from Washington.” Earlier on, he was Newsweek’s foreign editor, guiding its award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. He has done on-the-ground reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world, and served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. Hirsh has appeared many times as a commentator on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and National Public Radio. He has written for the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, and Washington Monthly, and authored two books, Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future over to Wall Street and At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering its Chance to Build a Better World. Hirsh has received numerous awards, including the Overseas Press Club award for best magazine reporting from abroad in 2001 and for Newsweek’s coverage of the war on terror, which also won a National Magazine Award.
Results 1-10 of 59

Why the United Nations Is Suddenly Relevant

September 24, 2013 When it comes to make-believe foreign policy, usually nothing beats the annual meetings of the U.N. General Assembly. Each September, member nations of the organization that President Obama recently decried as "paralyzed" each get to perform, sometimes antically, at the podium. And absolutely nothing gets done. That's especially the view ...

Obama's Diplomatic Coup

September 13, 2013 Never has Winston Churchill’s epigram looked so apt as right now: “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing,” the eloquent Briton reportedly said, “after they’ve exhausted all the other possibilities.” Barack Obama at first tried just about every possibility in dealing with Syria but the right ...

Will Obama Resort to Appeasement in Syria?

September 3, 2013 World War II began 74 years ago Sunday when German troops invaded Poland. The invasion conclusively discredited the concept of "appeasement" as a foreign policy for, well, the next 74 years. But if the U.S. Congress opposes authorization of the military mission to Syria that President Obama has now handed ...

How Social Media Helps Make the Case for War with Syria

August 31, 2013 President Obama was well aware that he had a credibility problem in making the case against Syria over its alleged chemical-weapons use because of the bad intelligence on Iraq a decade ago. The British Parliament reminded him of this problem Thursday when it shockingly rejected military action in a close ...

Will Social Media Get Obama Off the Hook on Syria?

August 30, 2013 FROM NEXTGOV arrow President Obama was well aware that he had a credibility problem in making the case against Syria over its alleged chemical-weapons use because of the bad intelligence on Iraq a decade ago. The British Parliament reminded him of this problem Thursday when it shockingly rejected military action in a close ...

Drones, Spying, Iraq and the Case Against Military Action in Syria

August 29, 2013 It was perhaps the greatest "Perry Mason moment" in the history of the U.N. Security Council. When U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson challenged his Soviet counterpart, Valerian Zorin, to admit that the USSR had installed offensive missiles in Cuba in 1962, Zorin replied, "I am not in an American courtroom." Stevenson ...

Syria: Mission Impossible?

August 27, 2013 Chuck Hagel, who's had some experience avoiding dumb wars, was strikingly confident about U.S. military plans against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in an interview Tuesday with the BBC. "We are ready to go, like that," the defense secretary said. Actually, that's not quite true, and Hagel's tough words fail to ...

How Egypt Helps Assad

August 21, 2013 Bashar al-Assad is, finally, having a very good week. The latest allegations of chemical weapons use against the Syrian dictator don't matter nearly as much as other dramatic developments—in particular, the United States' willingness to stand aside while Assad's autocratic brethren in the Egyptian junta cold-bloodedly killed some one thousand ...

The Arab World Is on the Brink of Radicalizing

August 14, 2013 As the Egyptian military consolidates control by murdering pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters and declaring a state of emergency, we may be witnessing the most dangerous potential for Arab radicalization since the two Palestinian intifadas. Despite the resignation Wednesday of Mohamed ElBaradei, the vice president, in opposition to the Egyptian junta's action, ...

Russia Hasn't Gotten Over the Cold War

August 7, 2013 Casually, and in the unlikeliest of places--a comedy show--President Obama gave voice this week to what many Russia experts have been saying for some time: Moscow never fully left the Cold War behind. The real question, and even Obama seems somewhat mystified by this, is why. "There have been times ...