Two hundred thirty years have elapsed since Jefferson's document was signed in Philadelphia, declaring the 13 colonies to be independent forever of the England of George III. In his Farewell Address, Washington defined independence in a single sentence: "It is our...
An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming. "It has always seemed to me probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of...
Condi and the Isolationists
To buttress crumbling support for his interventionist policy, President Bush played his ace of trumps, sending his most popular champion, Condi Rice, to the Southern Baptist Convention. If seven standing ovations and 20,000 Christians bursting forth into a spontaneous...
Steering Into a Third Intifada
When there is no solution, there is no problem, observed James Burnham, the former Trotskyite turned Cold War geostrategist. Burnham's insight came again to mind as President Bush ended his meeting with Ehud Olmert by announcing that the Israeli prime minister had...
‘Comrade Wolf’ and the Mullahs
In the 27 years since the Iranian Revolution, the United States has launched air strikes on Libya, invaded Grenada, put Marines in Lebanon, and run air strikes in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in retaliation for the Beirut bombing. We invaded Panama, launched...
Why Are We Baiting Putin?
"[N]o legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply management or attempt to monopolize transportation," thundered Vice President Cheney to the international pro-democracy conference in Vilnius, Lithuania....
Of Imperial Presidents and Congressional Cowards
Now that Congress is back from spring break and looking ahead to Memorial Day, July 4, the August recess and adjournment early in October for elections, perhaps it can take up this question. Does President Bush have, or not have, the authority to take us to war with...
The Generals’ Revolt
In just two weeks, six retired U.S. Marine and Army generals have denounced the Pentagon planning for the war in Iraq and called for the resignation or firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often...
Kerry, the Antiwar Candidate?
With the Gallup Poll showing 51 percent of Americans want all U.S. troops out of Iraq by year's end, John Kerry has made his move. The 2004 Democratic nominee is calling for complete withdrawal of U.S. forces, if Iraqis do not agree on a unity government by May 15....
What Is ‘Democracy’?
"If I must die, I will die," Abdul Rahman told a human rights worker. Facing execution for converting to Christianity, Rahman had just been moved from a jail in Kabul, where his life was in imminent peril, to the notorious Policharki prison outside Kabul, where 2,000...


