To Americans, World War II ended with the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, following detonation of atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9. But for Russians, who did not enter the war on Japan until Aug. 8, 1945, "The Great Patriotic War" ended...
John Bolton, Force of Darkness
Memo to: Richard Lugar, chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Re: An Anti-Diplomat at the UN? Dear Senator, you've known me for more than 30 years, from your days as Mayor of Indianapolis and my days as associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. When I tell...
Commemorating a World War
That the commemoration of the end of World War II is being used to announce the commencement of World War IV is just another one of those little ironies that the Bush administration seems to delight in. The president's five-day four-nation journey, which takes him to...
The Smoking Gun
A top secret British memorandum dated July 23, 2002 was leaked in the run-up to Thursday's parliamentary elections in the UK (which Blair won, though his Labour Party was much weakened by public disgust with such shenanigans as the memo describes). It summarizes a...
Iraq Clouds Blair Victory
LONDON - The invasion of Iraq rebounded a little on the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to dent his majority as he returned to a third term as prime minister. But it was not serious damage. Iraq did not prevent Blair from returning with a comfortable...
With a Whimper?
Those who know me often accuse me of being Pollyannaish in my long-range optimism, noting that I still believe, unlike most post-Marxists, that the state will eventually wither away (although I've come to accept the likelihood that it just might not happen during my...
Vote Dampens Hamas Political Bid
JERUSALEM - Fatah maintained its position this week as the largest party by far in the Palestinian territories, despite earlier signs of weakness and a strong showing by the militant Hamas movement in the municipal elections. Preliminary results from the West Bank and...
US Nuclear Weapons Hypocrisy Highlighted at Conference
A month-long U.N. conference on halting the spread of nuclear weapons neared the end of its first week Friday deadlocked over how to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The meeting opened Monday without a set agenda. Diplomats warned it could end in four...
Iran Defends the NPT
Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi's address to the Seventh Review Conference of the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons was a diplomatic masterpiece in sharp contrast to the undiplomatic badgering of the Conferees about alleged "loopholes" in the...
Mission Accomplished, Captain Queeg?
Well, here we are, two years out (as they say in Washington) from "mission accomplished," the president's now-famous speech during the photo opportunity on an American carrier. The American death toll in Iraq is now 1,585, and the wounded exceed 10,000. The cost is...


