1. “The war in Iraq is finally over after nine years.”

Rothkopf notes the U.S. has been militarily engaged in Iraq since the early 1990 and this will likely be just the end of another installment in the long running series of U.S. warmongering policies in the region.

2. “America’s mission in Iraq was a success.”

He expresses astonishment at such a claim while Iraq is divided, undemocratic, corrupt, and the U.S. invasion has cost U.S.$1 trillion, thousands of U.S. lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and its national reputation. U.S. war in Iraq bears greater semblance to a full-scale “fiasco”, he says.

3. “We are winning in Afghanistan.”

Rothkopf describes this one as a hot from the oven “howler” by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Washington has strengthened the region’s extremists and the threat of instability in nuclear Pakistan is now actually higher than it was when U.S. went in, he says.

4. Tie: “Pakistan is America’s ally” and “Afghanistan is America’s partner.”

Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan can by any “credible definition” be called a U.S. ally. This is attested to by the animosity of Islamabad towards Washington and Kabul’s belittling of the U.S. on the world stage, Rothkopf says.

5. “America is unthreatened by China’s growth.”

A “prayer” by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rothkopf says. “It should be true. But it’s not,” he adds.

6. Tie: “Republicans are the problem” and “Democrats are the problem.”

Rothkopf dubs this one as “the great lie of American politics.” He says the problem with U.S. politics is not the parties, but the money. “The system is so resolutely corrupt that recent scandals have only resulted in more money flowing into the system and past reforms being undone,” he notes.

7. “Cutting the taxes of millionaires helps create U.S. jobs.”

There is not even one single solitary shred of evidence to support this “idiotic” suggestion, Rothkopf notes.

8. “This next summit of European leaders will be decisive …”

Rothkopf says despite the fact that this claim has been made every few weeks for the past months, the “supposedly sophisticated financial markets” of the United States continue to fall for it.

9. “The Obama administration is committed to serious financial services reform.”

The U.S. financial system is still plagued by all the threats that instigated the 2008 recession. “Not an inch of progress,” Rothkopf says.

10. “Only nine percent of Americans approve of Congress.”

“This can’t possibly be true. There can’t possibly be that many,” Rothkopf says in a stinging sarcastic tone.

11. “The operation in Libya will be over in a matter of days or weeks.”

Rothkopf says the operation was wrong to begin with, “and then wrong and then wrong again for months.”

12. “I love Israel.”

Even though everyone in U.S. politics makes such an assertion, nobody really means it, Rothkopf notes. What the politicians really mean, however, is that “I want American Jews to think I love Israel enough to vote for me and give me money,” he says.

“Those are just a few of a bumper year for duplicity, mendacity, and craven misstatements.”-David J. Rothkopf, Foreign Policy