Mark Tooley

Mark Tooley is IRD’s president and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a native of Arlington, Virginia. He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church, published in 2008; Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century, published in 2012; and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War, published in 2015.

Follow Mark on Twitter: @markdtooley

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9-11, Today, and Tomorrow

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.”

Economic Growth vs World’s Dictators

Dalibor Rohac discusses his new book Unshackled: How Economic Growth Can Defeat the World’s Dictators.

Christian Realism & Losing Vietnam

As a fight against repression and aggression, the U.S. war in Vietnam was indeed noble. But for it to be more fully just it should also have been winnable or at least sustainable. According to McNamara at War, it was neither, which McNamara came to realize

America’s Gloomy 250th

Bombast and grievance have their moments. But faith, love and forgiveness endure.

Iran War: Suez or Saigon?

Neutralizing Iran’s dictatorship was in theory a noble cause.

Ep. 109 | The Rise of Postliberal Protestantism

Editors James Diddams and Mark Tooley are joined by Hillsdale history professor Darryl Hart to discuss the rise of postliberal Protestantism in the US

The Iran War’s “Bad Theology”?

Arguably the Iran War is America’s first post-Christian war, heralded with brutalist rhetoric, not a moral vision. The problem is not so much “bad theology,” but no theology.

Iran War and Public Opinion

With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. – Abraham Lincoln

Ep. 105 | Will the Iran War Prove Prudent or a Waste of Political Capital?

While Iran’s theocratic regime should be overturned, will Operation Epic Fury ultimately bring this goal closer to fruition or exhaust the patience of the American electorate with wars in the Middle East?

The Case Against Christian Nationalism

A Christian Realist view, different from nearly all forms of Christian Nationalism, is that social righteousness advances haphazardly and providentially.