The New Republic

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The Israeli reactions to the Goldstone report on the Gaza war of January 2009 have focused, understandably, on its outrageous omissions and distortions and one-sided judgments, as well as on the moral corruption of the report's sponsor, the UN's Human Rights Commission. But the far-reaching strategic implications of the Goldstone report require no less urgent consideration. READ MORE >>

Jeffrey Herf is one of the pre-eminent intellectual historians of totalitarianism. He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic. See, for example, his last few contributions here, here, and here. READ MORE >>

Roger Cohen has the Times beat in Iran. Well, not exactly. No one has the Times beat in Iran. I don't know how many Western newspapers have their own journalists in the country. I do know that the FT does but it is an Iranian who holds it. Anyway, the datelines from Iran are commonly from Arab capitals, mostly Beirut. READ MORE >>

It is three years since the second Lebanon war began and nearly three years since it was supposedly ended.  Formally, the finale came with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was the handicraft of Condi Rice in her panic to have some kind of achievement to her name. President Bush played along with the charade, maybe because Israeli politics itself had made continuing the conflict untenable. READ MORE >>

About ten days after the start of Iran's insurrection, I asked a senior administration official what, if anything, the White House knew about the people behind the demonstrations. His reply: "I think it is fair to say senior administration officials are busily trying to understand how the opposition is generated and where it came from." In other words, there's a lot about the protesters we still don't know. READ MORE >>

We can all agree that the failure of Hezbollah to win a majority in Lebanon's elections this weekend was a relief. It was also an outcome few people in the western media forecast. READ MORE >>

A strange pairing indeed, but today's NYT suggests that European finance officials are talking to Lebanon's Party of God about continuing economic support to the country even if Hezbollah beats the relatively pro-Western Sunni-based coalition in next month's elections. As the Times notes, Joe Biden sang a different tune on his visit to Beirut last week, suggesting that the U.S. READ MORE >>

“YES, SOMETIMES I GO into the room with my advisers and I start shouting. And then they say, ‘And then what?’” The question hangs in the perfectly cooled air in Sa’ad Hariri’s marble-floored sitting room, where Beirut appears as a sunlit abstraction visible at a distance through thick windows. Hariri’s father, the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, martyr of the Cedar Revolution, arches his black eyebrows from a giant poster near the sofa, looking out at his son with a sidelong, mischievous glance. “It hasn’t been a joyful trip,” Sa’ad Hariri is saying. READ MORE >>

I warned many times that Security Council Resolution 1701 to which Israel was coerced by Condoleezza Rice into accepting was a peril to its defense.  The resolution, whittled down so that it had as little substance as possible, vested the maintenance of the peace and the prevention of Syrian (and Iranian) smuggling of arms to Hezbollah to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. This international "interim" force was first mustered in 1978. It has not performed well. READ MORE >>