The New Republic

America's Iraq policy requires a fundamental strategic reappraisal. The present policy--justified by falsehoods, pursued with unilateral arrogance, blinded by self-delusion, and stained by sadistic excesses--cannot be corrected with a few hasty palliatives. The remedy must be international in character; political, rather than military, in substance; and regional, rather than simply Iraqi, in scope. READ MORE >>

IRAQ HAS BEEN a vexing issue for John Kerry. Every time he takes a position, the domestic political ground seems to shift under his feet. He supported the use-of-force resolution in 2002, only to find that Democratic audiences hated the war and were flocking to Howard Dean. So Kerry adjusted his rhetoric to sound more like the Vermont governor. Then, once assured of the nomination, he began tacking back to the center to court moderate, general-election voters. Now, just as much of the country is moving left on the war, Kerry has moved right. READ MORE >>

The Noonday Cemetery and Other Stories By Gustaw Herling Translated by Bill Johnston (New Directions, 281 pp., $25.95) IN 1953, WITOLD GOMBROWICZ, the great punk of Polish literature, began publishing a diary in the émigré journal Kultura, hoping that it would make him rich and famous. The diary, written in desperation, was to become perhaps Gombrowicz’s most celebrated work. It opens:  Monday: Me. Tuesday: Me. Wednesday: Me. Thursday: Me.  Friday is concerned with the state of Polish newspapers.  READ MORE >>

Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida Edited by Giovanna Borradori (University of Chicago Press, 208 pp., $25) I. READ MORE >>

AS THE WORLD’S bankers gathered last September in the Persian Gulf city of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings, talk inevitably turned to the economic stagnation of the Arab world. The statistics are grim: The 280 million people of the 22 Arab countries have a combined gross domestic product (GDP) less than that of 40 million Spaniards, some 25 percent of Arabs live below the poverty line, and some 20 million are out of work. The region’s economic growth—an insipid 0.5 percent over the past 30 years—is among the lowes READ MORE >>

The most beautiful libraries exude a bookish rapture, and no libraries have more of this luminous poetry than the glorious confections, all polished wood and shining stone and white-and- gold stucco, that royal families and religious orders built in the eighteenth century, mostly in Austria, Germany, and READ MORE >>

Some two million Israeli homes recently received in the mail the 47-page text of the Geneva Accord, which claims to be the comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Accord, a European-funded effort secretly negotiated by Palestinian officials and Israeli public figures for two years--and signed in a symbolic, lavish ceremony in Geneva this week--states that Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders, a Palestinian state will emerge with its capital in Jerusalem, and the two peoples will recognize each other's right to statehood and resolve the refugee issue. READ MORE >>

In early 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to President George W. Bush from the heart. The war in Afghanistan had been an astonishing display of U.S. strength. Instead of the bloody quagmire many predicted, CIA paramilitary agents, Special Forces, and U.S. air power had teamed with Northern Alliance guerrillas to run the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of their strongholds. As a new interim government took power in Kabul, Cheney was telling Bush that the next phase in the war on terrorism was toppling Saddam Hussein. READ MORE >>

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During the Oslo peace process, Natan Sharansky, the Soviet dissident turned politician, was a lone, even eccentric, voice on the Israeli right. Where others on the right condemned Oslo for betraying historic claims or vital security needs, Sharansky attacked it for betraying democracy. By imposing dictatorship on the Palestinians, he argued, Israel was repeating the mistake made by Western democracies that sought stability by accommodating rather than challenging communist regimes. READ MORE >>