Iran's nuclear program and considerable resources enable it to strive for strategic dominance in its region. With the impetus of a radical Shiite ideology and the symbolism of defiance of the U.N. Security Council's resolution, Iran challenges the established order in the Middle East and perhaps wherever Islamic populations face dominant, non-Islamic majorities. The appeal […]
Two negotiations conducted thousands of miles apart by a largely overlapping group of participants may well determine the prospects of world order. In Beijing, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are negotiating about the North Korean nuclear program; in Vienna, the so-called E-3 (Germany, France and Britain) occasionally meet with an […]
Two conceptions dominate public discussion on Lebanon. The first is that Hezbollah is a traditional terrorist organization operating covertly outside the law. The second is that the cease-fire marks an end to the war in Lebanon. Neither conception is valid. Hezbollah is, in fact, a metastasization of the al-Qaeda pattern. It acts openly as a […]
The world's attention is focused on the fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but the context leads inevitably back to Iran. Unfortunately, the diplomacy dealing with that issue is constantly outstripped by events. While explosives are raining on Lebanese and Israeli towns and Israel reclaims portions of Gaza, the proposal to Iran in May […]
Pelé in 1970. Maradona in '86. Zidane in '98. Every four years, one World Cup player makes history. Henry A. Kissinger-Nobel Peace Prize winner, former secretary of State, soccer fan-shares his golden moments before this year's June 9 kickoff. On June 9, host country Germany will inaugurate a month of football frenzy by playing Costa […]
The recent letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush needs to be considered on several levels. It can be treated as a ploy to obstruct U.N. Security Council deliberations on Iran's disregard of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This consideration, and the demagogic tone of the letter, merited its rejection by Secretary […]
During the month of June, no sportsman will be able to rival the attention focused on Franz Beckenbauer. Widely considered the best soccer player ever produced by Germany, he will preside over a tournament of 32 teams, including one from the U.S, the survivors of an elimination process involving 194 teams, that has gone on […]
The recent publication of the second quadrennial administration statement on national strategy passed without the controversy that marked its predecessor in 2002. This is all the more remarkable because the statement reiterates the U.S. commitment to a strategy of preemption in exactly the same words contained in the 2002 version. When the doctrine of preemption […]
President Bush's visit has brought relations between India and the United States to an unprecedented level of cooperation and interdependence, which promises to make a seminal contribution to international peace and prosperity. Until recently India straddled Cold War crises in the name of a nonalignment that proclaimed the moral equivalence of the two sides; on […]
The image of Ariel Sharon lying comatose in an Israeli hospital has a haunting quality. There is the poignancy of the warrior who fought — occasionally ruthlessly — in all of Israel's wars, incapacitated when he was on the verge of proclaiming a dramatic reappraisal of Israel's approach to peace. And, there is the prospect […]