First, the good news (or sort of): In his much-anticipated address outlining his strategy for Afghanistan on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama refrained from employing the kind of fantasy-infused rhetoric about democratizing the Middle East that his predecessor tended to apply to the marketing his own war plans to the...

"You used to be big," says the B-movie hack screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) when he meets the faded and aging silent film star Norma Desmond (portrayed by Gloria Swanson) in her decaying mansion in Billy Wilder's classic film-noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). "I am big. It's the pictures...

If you have been following what America's right-wing bloggers and radio talk-show hosts have been saying about President Barack Obama's just-concluded trip to the Asia-Pacific, you would be under the impression that Obama was not treated by officials in that region as the leader of the world's only remaining...

Lee Kwan Yew, the Founding Father of Singapore and that city-state's first Prime Minister (1959-90) and its current Minister Mentor (a cabinet position he assumed when his son eldest Lee Hsien Loong was selected as Prime Minister in 2004) is one the global village's leading Wise Men; East Asia's Henry...

Lee Kwan Yew, the Founding Father of Singapore and that city-state's first Prime Minister (1959-90) and its current Minister Mentor (a cabinet position he assumed when his son eldest Lee Hsien Loong was elected as Prime Minister in 2004) is one the global village's leading Wise Men; East Asia's Henry...

Not unlike the local weatherman who was being accused by Larry David in an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" of falsely forecasting rain in order to clear the golf course, political analysts and financial experts have been faulted for allegedly elevating wishful thinking or biased opinion to the...

The ghosts of the Vietnam War seem to be hanging around the White House Situation Room as President Barack Obama and his national security aides are debating a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, and in particular whether to deploy more U.S. troops to that country. Indeed, if to...

"I have to admit that I'm beginning to miss George W. Bush," is the way former Republican Senator "Chuck" Hagel responded when being asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer to assess the foreign policy record of the administration of Republican President John McCain. "We probably should have paid more attention to...

According to Washington's latest conventional wisdom, France under President Nicolas Sarkozy has been steadily embracing a tougher approach towards Iran and is sounding now more belligerent than the Obama Administration in demanding that Tehran end its nuclear program. Indeed, Sarkozy seems to have been transformed into the "Scoop" Jackson du...

Political thinkers like Walter Lippmann have concluded that the American voters were largely ignorant about foreign policy and lacked the competence to make critical choices about war and peace, and required the guidance of experts, specialists and bureaucrats, the so-called foreign policy elites. But the notion that this governing class...

Washington Needs to Adjust to the New Global Reality

Historians agree that Britain's rise as a pre-eminent global power came as a response to changing circumstances and not as a part of a grand master plan; Britain, it has been said, stumbled into an empire. But the converse...

Accusing an American president of "appeasing" Russia and of "betraying" the Poles and the Czechs, the way critics have been reacting to the Obama Administration's announcement that it was scrapping a planned missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, had the effect of enveloping Washington in a Cold War time-warp.

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