Free Republic

Once I was in India all set to take a local flight. But when everyone had sat on the plane for a while in the sweltering sun, an engine wasn't working right so we all got off again. Then I stood in front of the windowed wall watching the technicians take apart the motor. When they put it back again, there were still extra parts sitting on the runway. That's when I knew it was a good idea to travel by car instead. It was one of the most amazing hours I've ever spent, in the backseat of an Indian-made...

Ironic, isn't it, that radical forces threaten violence, sanctions and other actions against democratic states while insisting - along with their Western apologists - that any attempt by their victims to put pressure on them is useless. Think about it. Every time someone proposes, say, economic sanctions (on Iran or Syria), an international tribunal investigating its involvement in terrorism (Syria), military operations or killing terrorist leaders (Hamas, Hizbullah, Iraqi insurgents, al-Qaida, the Kurdish PKK, or the Taliban), diplomatic isolation, or even not giving financial aid (Hamas), a chorus of voices says: It won't work. The extremists, you see, are tough....

Sometimes to understand one’s own era you have to immerse yourself in another. I pick up my copy of Paul Edmonds’ Peacocks and Pagodas as an example. This — though you’ve probably never heard of it — seems the best-regarded book ever written on the people and society of Burma. You may know it as Myanmar. What could be more esoteric, and yet profoundly revealing, about much broader issues? My copy is a first edition from 1924 and in its long life and travels it once belonged to T.N. Jayavelu, Antiquarian Bookseller of Choolai, Madras, India. But now it resides...

T.S. Eliot wrote memorably in The Hollow Men: Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow. In the case of the peace process and all the great ideas for fixing everything in Arab-Israel relations, the shadow has been Palestinian leaders' unwillingness - and now also inability - to make a compromise agreement ending the conflict. Close examination of the movement's ideology, organization and structure shows why this is true. Many, or most, of the young guard prefer a deal with Hamas to one with Israel, and a return to...

Much will be said about Benazir Bhutto's assassination; little will be understood about what it truly means. I'm not speaking here about Pakistan, of course, as important as that country is, but rather the lesson - as if we needed any more - for that broad Middle East which begins in Pakistan and ends on the Atlantic Ocean coast. The following is a true story. Back in 1946, an American diplomat asked an Iranian editor why his newspaper angrily criticized the United States but never the Soviet Union. The Iranian said it was obvious. "The Russians," he said, "they kill...

Vegetius wrote wisely, 'Let him who desires peace, prepare for war.' Shortly before the Iraq war began in 2003, I made a proposal which unfortunately went unheeded by both sides in the Western debate over that crisis. The idea was that President George W. Bush should tell the Europeans that he really wanted to invade Iraq, but could be dissuaded by tougher sanctions and a real effort to counter that regime's threat. Those Europeans and others who wanted to avoid a war would agree to be strong and consistent in pressuring Saddam Hussein to keep his commitments. Iraq could have...

After three years of intensive diplomacy involving the "best minds" of the Western countries, the Iranian government has literally run rings around its adversaries. The elephant has gone into labor and brought forth a mouse. That's the most apt remark about the end-game in the international effort to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. After three years of intensive diplomacy involving the highest-ranking policy-makers and "best minds" of the Western countries, the Iranian government has literally run rings around its adversaries. Teheran has repeatedly lied and misled its interlocutors, rejected good offers and broken its own promises. And, at the end,...

The time has come to speak of what "Realism" means in international affairs. Historically, realism has been the core of diplomatic practice. This concept says that countries rationally formulate their national interests and pursue them. These interests are defined in material, not sentimental, terms - obtaining or holding security, territory and economic assets. As an explicit doctrine this arose in Europe. America has always had some trouble accepting this approach. It often seeks to inject ideas and values into its foreign policy. If George W. Bush is only the latest example of this (promoting democracy), it is a concept central...

The Region: Appeasement redux Barry Rubin, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 13, 2006 We have come full circle. Here is how the last great historical era began, the one we seem to be starting over afresh. It's January 30, 1933, and here's what the Cleveland Press reports from Washington under the headline, "US Unruffled by Hitler Rise." "High authorities here regard with complacence Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany... They [express] faith that Hitler would act with moderation... Experts based this belief on past events showing that so-called radical groups usually moderated, once in power." The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin stated...

If anyone doubts that permissiveness toward terrorism is spreading – and building up tremendous political problems for the future – let them look at Iraq. Every day horrendous attacks take place directed at civilians, and yet there is no serious diplomatic action to fight this problem. Indeed, we take it for granted that the great majority of the Arab media will applaud the attacks, that Arab states will look the other way as money is raised and terrorists recruited, while Syria has become a base from which terrorist war is waged. We have become used to much of the world's...

OMAHA, Neb. -- A Nebraska Democrat is under fire. Barry Rubin is executive director of the state party and is accused of using a racial slur. Rubin used a Spanish phrase meaning "Uncle Tom" when he wrote about Douglas County Election Commissioner Carlos Castillo in a blog on the Nebraska Democrats Web site. The comment has been removed from the site, but the war of words is not over. "I just kind of stumbled upon it," Castillo said. "(It) was on their Web site last night." Castillo, a Republican, said he was perusing the Democrats' site when he noticed a...

The Middle East poses the biggest threat to world peace and stability. One element that makes matters worse is the inability of so many politicians, diplomats, academics and journalists to understand the region. The layers of misunderstanding begin with the failure to consider the Middle East a real place with its own characteristics. The failure to recognize differences is not specific to this region, but part of a general modern intellectual reluctance to admit cultural differences even as it purports to celebrate them. According to this mind-set, diverse foods and colorful traditional dress can be celebrated as quaint customs, while...

Who will be the key players and factions in post-Arafat Palestinian politics?  There are unfortunately far too many of them.  Arafat's legacy will be fought over by at least five major factions, three separate institutions, and fourteen different security agencies in his own group Fatah alone. That leaves aside the Islamist organizations and smaller PLO groups, and individual rivalries or ambitions within all these groups. "Factions" is probably too precise a word. No real parties exist: there are no disciplined groupings or generally recognized charismatic leaders. The structure is loose and rapidly shifting.  Ideology is virtually non-existent; there is no...