Even those who have celebrated the recent election in Iraq are concerned that it could give birth to a government dominated by Shi'ite fundamentalist parties that have little respect for the rights of women and minorities. But even those observers worried about the...
Not a day goes by in Washington without a smug official or a snooty U.S. columnist delivering a long and tedious sermon to officials in Beijing or Moscow. The Chinese and the Russians are told sternly by the Americans how to behave themselves – that is, if they...
The American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have ignited hopes among Washington's neoconservatives that the U.S., taking advantage of the post-Cold War unipolar moment and its dominant military power, will gradually transform into a global empire. So the debate...
If you've been following the news in recent days, you might have concluded that China resides in two parallel universes. First, there is the geo-economic universe in which China, the rising economic power with a huge current account surplus, is being urged by members...
As a Washington-based pundit with some foreign policy credentials, I frequently receive phone calls from secretaries under pressure of a deadline who book "experts" like me for radio and television news shows, asking me to "do Iraq" or chat about some other area of...
During her meetings with foreign leaders in Washington and the many world capitals she has visited recently, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounded like a kindergarten teacher warning rowdy kids that if they won't behave, they could end up standing in the...
Renowned American historian and diplomat George F. Kennan died last week at the age of 101, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush announced that he was nominating Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. So it was not surprising that I...
Imagine: for a few years you were investing the money you had saved for your daughter's college education in one of those moderately conservative plans that provided some increase in the value of the investment without exposing it to major risks. But then your...
In The Image, Daniel Boorstin's ground-breaking and magisterial study of the rise of the modern media and the public relations profession, the renowned historian coined the term "pseudo-event." He was referring to a "happening" that is designed to...
For Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon all the current euphoria about the rising New Lebanon, marking the start of a revolutionary change in the Middle East, must have the feel of déjà vu all over again. After all, when Israeli troops under the order of then Defense...
