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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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.

Romans 13 & Minneapolis etc

Even in the enforcement of just laws, state authorities can be captive to their own hubris.

Riefenstahl’s Nazi Ambivalence

A new documentary confronts Leni Riefenstahl’s lifelong denial of complicity in Nazi crimes, revealing how artistic brilliance and moral blindness can coexist—and why forgetting history invites its return.

Ep. 102 | After Two Years of War, a Chance for Peace?

On the second anniversary of the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, the Provcrew sits down to review Donald Trump’s proposal for ending the war.

Ep. 101 | So Reinhold Niebuhr and John Wesley Walk into a Bar…

Can you be a Wesleyan Protestant and a Christian realist? Mark Tooley, an ardent Methodist, and Robert Nicholson discuss this question on the latest Provcast

Ep. 100 | Recovering ‘Hebraic Mortar’ to Patch Crumbling Foundations

The shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk is a wakeup call for Americans of every stripe. What is happening to our society? How can we fix it—and where do we start?

The “Unnecessary War” 80 Years Later

America could have prevented World War II and, with benevolent wisdom and fraternal strength, can forestall another.