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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America, Ike & Islam

Can you imagine an American president today greeted by hundreds of thousands with acclaim and American flags as he rides…

Trump, Iraq, Reagan & Vietnam

Donald Trump has denounced the Iraq War as a “horrible mistake,” and “one of the worst decisions in the history…

Korea, America & Providential Duty

Last week a delegation of delightful South Korean students visited our office.  They all stood respectfully when I arrived, took…

Iran & “God’s Deed”

The several USA citizens of Iranian background recently released after imprisonment on contrived charges in Iran coincidentally, or not, arrived…

13 Hours in Benghazi & C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis wrote that a virtuous patriotism becomes “militant only to protect what it loves.” This theme animates 13 Hours:…

Lockerbie, Libya & Bloody Human History

A Libyan bomb blew up New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland 27 years…

Putin, Trump & Anglo-American Democracy

Recently Donald Trump ignited controversy by responding to praise from Vladmir Putin with his own praise for the strength of…

Stalinist Corbyn
Merry Stalinist Christmas

Far-left British Labor Party chief Jeremy Corbyn ignited controversy by quoting at a Labor Party Christmas soirée words from the late, longtime Communist dictator of Albania Enver Hoxha.

Notre Dame
Patriotism, Paris & Notre Dame

A memorial mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for victims of the recent terror featured the French tri-colors illuminated on the altar. The organ played La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, prompting the congregation to stand. Some waved small French flags.

Mark Tooley: Rediscovering Protestant Just War Tradition

Providence aims to rediscover Protestant tradition and to unearth some of those resources as they relate to international affairs and the vocation of the state and how we would counsel America as a great power to perform on the world stage.