
Thursday, July 9, 2009
He speaks like an American, looks like an American, and acts like an American -- because he is American-born. He is Israel's new ambassador to the United States, formerly a citizen of both countries.
Friday, July 3, 2009
It's no longer a war on transnational terrorism? Before Emile Coue's method of psychotherapy, self-improvement based on the healing power of optimistic autosuggestion, becomes our national security comfort blanket, it would behoove us all to take a deep breath and snap out of creeping amnesia.
Monday, June 29, 2009
This year - A.D. 2009 to us - in the Islamic calendar is 1430 A.H. (Anno Hegirae, which began with the Prophet Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina). But in strife-torn Iran, it felt more like A.D. 1430, approaching the end of the Middle Ages, when religious bigotry and cruel fanaticism ruled Torquemada's era of some 2,000 burned at the stake.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Until recently, a twitter was simply a bird making high-pitched mating calls. Now Twitter is in the vanguard of an army of cybernauts whose speedy steeds are propelling both democratic and authoritarian governments through a period of social change more profound than anything we have experienced in 5,000 years of recorded history.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the sixth Israeli leader to concede the expression "Palestinian state." It was a first for Mr. Netanyahu, but the caveats drained it of any significance. Besides, events in a soon-to-be nuclear-capable Iranian theocracy - some now say thugocracy - where elections were rigged in favor of a president who despises the United States and sees no room for Israel in the Middle East, dictated geopolitical prudence. Even more so now that hundreds of thousands of young Iranians - the majority of Iran's 70 million people was born after the 1979 Islamic revolution - are protesting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's lopsided victory.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Confusion reigns on all fronts about the business and financial worlds the business school graduate is about to enter. Democratic capitalism is questioned, redrawn, drawn and quartered in everything from the Financial Times and the Economist to Chicken Little books about the sky falling. Kevin Phillips saw the perfect economic storm coming in "Bad Money," and he has updated his best-seller with "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism."
Friday, June 12, 2009
Stung by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's suggestion the Pakistani army was wimping out against Taliban insurgents, the country's strongest institution swung into action a month ago 60 miles from the seat of government in Islamabad.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Is the world more dangerous today than it was at the height of the Cold War?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Barely born, AfPak, the acronym for Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single theater of operations, already has been displaced. Pakistan has become the more dangerous of the two theaters, or PakAf.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Jordan's King Abdullah II, in his 10th year on the Hashemite throne, warns that either a Palestinian state is created this year - or there will be another war in the Middle East in 2010.