"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," sayeth Rahm. Opportunistic and cynical, yes. But also savvy political counsel that transformational presidents have always followed. ...more

February 4, 2009

Not since President Richard Nixon went to China has an intractable foreign-policy issue been so ripe for resolution as current U.S. relations with Cuba are today. ...more

January 15, 2009

War in the Gaza Strip demonstrates yet again that the current governance paradigm for the Palestinian people has failed. Terrorists financed and supplied by Iran control Gaza; the Palestinian Authority is broken, probably irretrievably; and economic development is stalled in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians are suffering the consequences of regional power struggles played out through them as surrogates. ...more

January 7, 2009

Ambivalence and rhetoric mix then drift here like the peach-tinted smoke from the hookah at our table. The words that rise from Abdel are like the smoke; the 30-year-old man is from the United Arab Emirates, and came to Egypt to study and be with his remaining family. He is drinking coffee in an alley cafe steps from the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, thus so sacred that non-Muslims are not admitted, except when they are admitted through the side door for women, accompanied by someone with the guide skills of Abdel, shoes folded sole-to-sole under an elbow, head covered with a pashmina. Americans are welcomed at all other mosques as long as they abide by certain traditions in this nasty, noisy, niggardly and noisome city of 15 million. ...more

May 19, 2008