World
Two Way Street
It has been three months since "the handshake" on the White House lawn, and the euphoria that followed it has by now all but dissipated. The Israel-PLO talks have become one impasse after another. What keeps the process going is one Israeli concession after another. Yasir Arafat says he won't come to Jericho unless and until his officials control the bridges to and from Jordan and the cross-points between Egypt and Gaza. In return, the Israelis agree to a larger, more heavily armed Palestinian police force than they ever contemplated. READ MORE >>
The Old War
The Newer Paradigm
As the new millennium draws near, we in the United States are suffering from a dearth of millennial ideas. Supply-side economics, multiculturalism, cold fusion, caller I.D.--all these Promethean schemes for transforming the human condition have lately come to naught. In their wake, small ideas and incremental thinking hold sway. Yet the popular appetite for visionary conceits remains strong. Has Hillary Clinton not struck a chord with her "politics of meaning," especially when she calls for the "remaking of the American way of politics, government, indeed life"? READ MORE >>
Muammar Dearest
President Bill Clinton and Jews have an unlikely new champion: Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya. To hear him tell it, the fiercely anti-American and anti-Israeli leader who has made himself an international pariah through his unwavering support of terrorism around the world is intent on dramatically changing his ways. READ MORE >>
After the Revolution
Politics is the art of achieving political goals — of achieving what is possible in a given situation, that is, in a situation that has its conditions and its limits. In this respect, the ethical point of view, the consideration of what is good and what is bad, what is fair and what is unfair, what is honest and what is dishonest, is external to politics. An ethical action, like an unethical action, is usually analyzed by politicians purely in pragmatic terms. Does it lead toward the goal or does it lead away from it? Montaigne observed, in his famous polemic against Machiavelli, that if a READ MORE >>
The German Delusion
The Russian Resolution
As we write, the first news of the apparent collapse of the Moscow coup of August 19 has arrived. We still cannot know how this extraordinary and rattling event will play out in the next few days; who its beneficiaries will be; who, among the military, the KGB, and the Party apparatus, will emerge as the central conspirators. What we do know, however, is that, like a bee that stings one last time before it expires, this putsch is the final spasm of a system that is coming steadily (or, rather, unsteadily) closer to extinction. READ MORE >>
From Russia, With Hate
Ten-Day Wonder
PRAGUE READ MORE >>
