A Referendum on War?

I'm not much of a voting man myself. I agree with former Washington Post managing editor Howard Simon, who preferred (though he couldn't enforce it) that his political writers not vote because it might make them feel vested in a candidate they would have to cover once...

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Readings in the Age of Empire

State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III Bob Woodward Simon & Schuster, 2006 558 pp. "On some of these issues I don't trust anybody that's that sure," Secretary of State Condi Rice allegedly said of the "extremists" on the Iraq war. One wonders why she continues to...

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Fiasco Then, Fiasco Now

[One of the sections below is devoted to Riverbend, the pseudonymous "girl blogger" of Baghdad. For it, I read the collection of her blog entries that the Feminist Press at CUNY published in 2005, Baghdad Burning, Girl Blog from Iraq, and then the newest volume,...

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A Jewish Hitler?

With the entry of Avigdor Lieberman into the government as deputy minister for "strategic threats" – essentially in charge of preparing for war with Iran – Israel makes a qualitative step toward a regime that increasingly resembles, in all its essentials, a...

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America’s Kingdom of Heaven

On Oct. 18, President George W. Bush signed an executive order creating a new national policy which loudly proclaims that the U.S. will brook no restraint of any kind on its "rights, capabilities, and freedom of action" in space, and that it has the right to...

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50 Years After Suez,
US Hegemony Ebbing Fast

As the Middle East prepares to mark the 50th anniversary on Oct. 29 of the Suez Crisis that effectively ended European colonialism, a half century of U.S. hegemony in the region also appears to be coming to an end, according to a growing number of analysts. The...

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Which Will It Be,
Stability or Democracy?

The Muslim Brotherhood is probably one of the most important organizations in the Islamic world, so I was delighted when I was asked recently to take part in a public meeting at New York University's Center for Law and Security to debate whether or not the U.S....

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The Fault Lies in Ourselves

During my professional lifetime, liberals and the left wing have focused on failures and misdeeds of the private sector, while libertarians and conservatives have focused on the failures and misdeeds of the public sector or government. It turns out that both sides are...

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Inventing Irrelevance

Constitution, Kosovo, and Media Misdirection On Saturday and Sunday, the citizens of Serbia are expected to vote in a plebiscite on the new constitution. In a rare display of political unity, the draft constitution was supported in the parliament by both the...

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