Sanctions Will Turn Iran into Another Cuba
The U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Iran earlier this year seem to be working with a vengeance. As if by remote control, the West has thousands of Iranians taking to the streets while the nation’s political elites are splitting…
The Eurozone’s Biggest Challenge: Fear and Panic
It did not take long for the euroskeptics and lemmings to re-emerge in Europe. In a matter of days after the Group of 8 industrial nations met to pledge growth as the Continent’s “imperative,” we now seem to be a…
China Reboot: From Textiles and Tea to High Tech
The tea leaves have not yet settled in China after the ousting of Bo Xilai, a leading figure in the Chinese Communist Party and (until last week) a shoe-in candidate for a seat on the Politburo’s powerful standing committee. But…
Five Things that Worked in 2011 Foretell 2012
2011 will go down as a good year for very few of us. Suspense, crisis, loss, frustration, and anxiety seemed to lie everywhere one turned. What better time to remind ourselves of a few developments during the year that are…
How the Debt Crisis Could Remake Europe
Maybe now we will all understand why the ancient adage “May you live in interesting times” was intended not as a blessing but as a curse. Last week wasmore than interesting in Europe: It was of historical importance—and bone-rattling in…
Here Comes the Chinese Spring
Social unrest is erupting in China—again. Simmering protests that began in two industrial cities several weeks ago have spread and intensified over the past few days, prompting yet more vigorous displays of force on the part of local governments and…
A Near Perfect Spy Novelist
ABSOLUTE FRIENDS. By John le Carré. Little, Brown. 455 pp. $26.95. A year ago now, when the Bush Administration was preparing the world for an American invasion of Iraq, John le Carré wrote a column of scathing, sharp-toothed commentary for…
A Stone Unturned
Someone once described Graham Greene as the novelist of decolonizing Britain. England during and after the war and the imperial fall was his true subject, the uncut stone from which he chiseled his themes. Think of knob-kneed, lonely-hearted Wilson, the…
The Indigenous and the Imported: Khatami’s Iran
Culture is what remains when one no longer believes in Utopia. —Farhad Khosrokhavar and Oliver Roy Comment sortir d’une revolution religieuse1 At the bar of my hotel in Tehran—or what used to be the bar in officially dry, postrevolutionary Iran—I sip…
Dark victory
US post-Cold War triumphalism masks a manifest uncertainty about its destiny in the 21st century In late April 1945, on one of the final days of WWII, a poignant scene unfolded on the banks of the River Elbe some miles southwest…
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