Leon Hadar

The unilateral Israeli withdrawal or “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of about 9,000 Jewish settlers from that region have helped produce dramatic media images, including mass demonstrations being held by the evicted settlers and their political supporters in Israel. Dressed in orange outfits and waving orange banners, the members of the right-wing … Continue reading “When a Pullout is Just a Cease-fire”

One of the first stories I covered as the Business Times correspondent in Washington in the early 1990s was the post-Cold War transformation of the relationship between the United States and India. India was beginning to shed the vestiges of its earlier policies of socialism at home and nonalignment abroad. The collapse of the Soviet … Continue reading “Multipolar’s the Way to Go for US”

He bought quite a lot of stuff at his favorite shopping mall over the weekend: cheap Chinese-made shirts (five), pants (three), suits (two), dresses (three), scarves, underwear and socks – and let’s not forget those cheap Chinese-made toys for the grandchildren to whom he also sent e-mails through his personal computer, which was manufactured somewhere … Continue reading “China-Bashing for Beginners”

Back in the 1950’s comedienne Carol Burnett made her name as a nightclub performer with a song called “I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles.” Americans had a big laugh over the spectacle of a celebrated entertainer singing a love song about U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s Cold War secretary of state and … Continue reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Being ‘Condi’”

Even the harshest Bush-bashing pundit tends to qualify his or her criticism of the war in Iraq with the line, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was an evil man and we should all be thankful that he and his cronies have been deposed, but…” In fact, you can already envision neoconservative columnists insisting … Continue reading “Saddam, Stalin, Hitler, and History”

Is the United States facing the threat of an economic 9/11 as Chinese corporations supposedly get ready to take control of US businesses and the entire economy? That is certainly the impression one would get after listening to the anti-China rhetoric out of Capitol Hill, after one of China’s state-controlled oil companies made an unsolicited … Continue reading “US Cries Foul Over China Fair Play”

Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai is not a democratic leader – and he doesn’t play one on Fox News television. If a “[pick favorite color] Revolution” were to take place in the streets of Hanoi, one could expect that PM Khai and the other Communist Party bosses would prove to be quite ruthless in … Continue reading “Trading, Not Invading: US Hums Different Tune on Vietnam”

Imagine that the United States had a parliamentary system like that of Canada or Britain in which prime ministers are under constant threat that declining public support could make it difficult for them to maintain the cohesion of their ruling coalition and could end up bringing down their governments and leading to new elections. It … Continue reading “Bush Becoming a Casualty of His Own War”

There is something pathetic in the recent efforts by the Bush administration (reported by the New York Times this week) to try to enlist Europe, the Arab world, and the United Nations to pressure the ruling Shi’ite-Kurdish coalition in Baghdad led by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to include members of the Sunni minority in the … Continue reading “Shi’ites: Game; Kurds: Set; Sunnis: Match; US: Loss”

I happened to be in Paris on the same day that the French people rejected the proposed European Union Constitution – a vote that was described by analysts in the French capital as a defeat for U.S.-led globalization and American-style capitalism. After arriving a few days later in Washington, and reading neoconservative op-ed commentaries and … Continue reading “Europe Votes, Neocons Gloat — but Why?”