International Affairs

Vanishing American Footprint

With his order to effect the execution of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs, 40 miles from Islamabad, without asking permission of the government, Barack Obama made a bold and courageous decision. Its success, and the accolades he has ...

International Affairs

The Post-Tsunami Forecast

The massive 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northern Japan will be a game-changer. Both negatively and positively, the reverberations will be felt across all continents. Japan has been in a recession for twenty years. Some ...

International Affairs

Can Japan Rise Again?

We can thank Providence that the earthquake was not 150 miles closer to Tokyo, else Japan’s dead might number in the millions. Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls it the worst crisis since World War II. Yet, horrendous as it is, it ...

International Affairs

Europe’s Great Berm

The world beyond our shores seems to be entering a zone of dangerous instability. Five years from now we may be looking back nostalgically at the decades 1980-2010 as an age of blessed tranquility when unsightly but skillful autocrats ...

Hosni Mubarak

International Affairs

The American Way of Abandonment

Hosni Mubarak, it appears, is not going to go quietly, or quickly. He is not going to play the role assigned him in the White House script that has him resigning and fleeing Egypt in the face of mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square. ...

International Affairs

We Gotta Get Out of That Place

With Egypt's melodramatic implosion, many Americans are asking, "€œWhat has this got to do with us?"€ The short answer: everything. We propped up Mubarak because he's good for Israel, yet most Egyptians want Israel gone. So why ...

International Affairs

Egypt Surprises the West Again

My old political philosophy teacher Professor Yusuf Ibish outlined the conditions he thought would lead inevitably to revolution. They included the population's impoverishment, denial of dignity, and repressive rulers who used torture ...

Hu Jintao and Barack Obama

International Affairs

How the Chinese Must See Us

“O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us,” wrote the poet Robert Burns. As Hu Jintao wings his way home, America’s hectoring still ringing in his ears, he must be thinking that maybe ...

International Affairs

Genomics: China’s New Killer App

This week’s state visit by Hu Jintao, China’s “president”"€”I prefer to say “head apparatchik,” since “president” implies an elected position"€”has fired off another round of China ...

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

International Affairs

Who Lost the Middle East?

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, especially today in the Maghreb and Middle East. For the ouster of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has sent shock waves from Rabat to Riyadh. Autocrats, emirs and kings have to be asking ...

International Affairs

How Long Must Okinawans Wait?

Washington officials continue to ignore the residents of Okinawa, a small island south of Japan. A poll from last summer revealed that over 70% of Okinawans want America's Futenma military base relocated off the island entirely. ...

International Affairs

European Union: R.I.P.?

When communism collapsed in Moscow, Prague and Belgrade at the end of the Cold War, ethnic nationalism surged to the surface in all three nations and tore them apart into 24 countries. Economic nationalism is now resurgent across ...


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