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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Robert Mugabe United Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa Zimbabwe
Mugabe’s Avoidable Tyranny?

Could Robert Mugabe’s calamitous 37-year reign over Zimbabwe have been averted if America recognized United Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa?

Zionism & Bolshevism

Last evening I attended a talk at the Israeli Embassy by the great Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who spent 9…

Defending Western Civilization
Defending Western Civilization

Even if Christians will not acknowledge the West as their own, the West is inextricably woven into the church’s eternal story, with glorious chapters yet unwritten. Christian leaders, ecclesial and intellectual, should step forward into their responsibility for leadership and stewardship of the West. Contrary to despairing conventional wisdom, it’s not too late.

Christianity & Paramount Leaders

Government serves God provisionally, not indefinitely. Xi Jinping Thought will have a short shelf life compared to the Word that endures forever.

Reformation Then & Now

The Reformation’s ennoblement of the God-created individual has a power that many despots don’t recognize until too late.

Churchill’s Painting for Adenauer

Churchill’s painting of Athens conveyed his hopes to Chancellor Adenauer that democracy could arise from the ruins of defeated and war-ravaged Germany.

The King's Choice Movie Review
King’s Choice, Honorable Statecraft & Just War

New Norwegian film ‘The King’s Choice’ about the king who defied Nazi invasion provides important lessons about honorable statecraft and Just War teaching.

Viceroy's House & the Great Game
Viceroy’s House & the Great Game

Fans of Downton Abby will appreciate that Hugh Bonneville (i.e., Lord Grantham) portrays another aristocrat, Lord Mountbatten, in the new film…

Petty Micro-Nationalisms

Hopefully, the wisdom of responsible nationalism will prevail against contrived, peevish separatism in Catalonia, Scotland, and elsewhere.

American Interests and Human Rights
American Interests and Human Rights

For a century American foreign policy has often purportedly seesawed between cold focus on American interests through realpolitik or high-minded advocacy of democracy and human rights.