Iran’s Trade Deals: Will the US Miss the Boat?
It is hard to find anything Israelis and Iranians agree upon, but they now hold one truth in common: The sanctions imposed on Tehran in mid–2010 over its opaque nuclear program are crumbling. Executives and state-enterprise bureaucrats from Beijing to…
The Decay of American Media
Toward a Poor Journalism One evening a half-dozen years ago, I stayed at the house of Albert Maysles, the noted documentary filmmaker, in upper Manhattan. I had just flown in from Hong Kong, where I was living at the time….
Europe’s New Recession Is One Just One of the West’s Problems
After the mini-avalanche in the markets last week, it would be comforting to conclude they are oversold and investors will soon come to their senses. Could be. But behind the clear indications of slower growth in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere,…
Obama’s ISIS Strategy Will Be His Jimmy Carter Moment
The Obama administration is now so tongue-tied it can’t tell us what it is about to do in the Middle East. So let’s pitch in: The Obama administration is going to war in Iraq and Syria. Having settled that, the…
How Obama Lost Friends in Europe and Influence Globally
Bad comes to worse in the Obama administration’s ties with Europe. Obama’s trans-Atlantic crisis is less dramatic than his other foreign policy failures: Syria, Egypt, the Mideast, China. But the implications of this debacle could prove profoundly significant—politically and diplomatically,…
Japan and China Vie for 21st Century Dominance
A specter haunts the great powers of East Asia. It is the specter of ethnic chauvinism and a recrudescent nationalism one would have thought a thing of the past. With this comes the possibility of irrational conflict, and for the…
Cold War By Other Means
Ukraine: the Crisis in Context It is never easy to see the present as history: Being inside events, being the stuff of which events are made, makes distance and the perspective that comes of it difficult. It is not a…
The Ukraine Delusion: Freedom Over the Economy
Charges and counter-charges now overtake the Ukraine crisis. It is a thicket at this point, with contradictions and hypocrisy in plentiful supply. The self-appointed government in Kiev, the parliament in constitutionally autonomous Crimea, the Russians, the Americans and Europeans—all miss…
State of Foreign Policy: Not a Sharp Picture
The blogs and newspapers tell us President Obama will be firing on all cylinders when he delivers his State of the Union speech Tuesday. He plans to push the reset button, reassert command and drive an agenda, and declare a…
As Democracy Grows So Does Global Corruption
It is hard to miss the democratic longings of so many of the world’s citizens as their voices rise these days. In number and diversity, these are surely among the distinct sounds of 2013. It is, however, impossible to miss…
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