MOSCOW: The new American administration of Barack Obama is planning to appoint a chief technology officer, following the lead of most large corporations nowadays. Should other countries have one, too? Rather than slavishly copy the United States, I think most countries should have a chief information officer – someone who thinks about information as an …
BIRMINGHAM, England: It would be an understatement to say that relations between Muslims and non-Muslims have been strained since 9/11. Here in the United Kingdom, a poll found that 26 percent of the population admitted to being “hostile to Muslims ; in the United States, one in five Americans said that they would not want …
WASHINGTON DC: Former senator Joe Biden predicted that President Barack Obama would be tested by a foreign policy crisis early in his term. The recent surge of violence in Gaza came even sooner than that. How he responds will be critical not only for the immediate security of Israelis and Palestinians, but also for the …
NEW YORK: The high hopes surrounding Barack Obama’s presidency are mostly a good thing, as they remind us that much of the anti-American sentiment that is so apparent around the world is not and need not be permanent. But this anticipation is also a problem for Obama, as it will be difficult – and in …
ISTANBUL: Just a few years ago, Europe headed Turkey’s agenda. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s newly elected government had embarked on a series of ambitious reforms to meet the European Union’s political criteria for membership. At the end of 2004, the EU decided to initiate accession talks. But pro-European euphoria proved short-lived: for all practical purposes, the …
WASHINGTON, DC: For generations to come, the Palestinians will remember the horrific war in Gaza with pain and bitterness. But what cannot yet be seen is how Palestinians will view Hamas. Whether Hamas can claim a victory – and whether Palestinians will believe them will be determined by the type of ceasefire that is eventually …
LOS ANGELES: As Barack Obama’s incoming administration debates the pace and consequences of withdrawal from Iraq, it would do well to examine the strategic impact of other American exits in the final decades of the 20th century. Although American commitments to Lebanon, Somalia, Vietnam, and Cambodia differed mightily, history reveals that despite immediate costs to …
PALM BEACH, Florida: As the war of Gaza worsened, the prospects for peace looked grim. But crises can be turned into opportunities by visionary eyes, caring hearts and thoughtful minds. The cycle of violence may continue for some time. But ultimately, Israelis and Palestinians will have to think outside the box in order to achieve …
BERLIN: For 19 years, the West (America and Europe) has been putting off answering a critical strategic question: what role should post-Soviet Russia actually play globally and in the European order? Should it be treated as a difficult partner or a strategic adversary? Even when this choice became critically acute during the crisis of Russia’s …
LAHORE:International attention has focused on Pakistan like never before in the weeks following the Mumbai attacks. To quote Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, “All of the world’s nightmares come together in Pakistan. Assuming the world does not have the option of turning its back on the country, what …
COPENHAGEN: As Barack Obama prepares for his inauguration, it is worth contemplating a passage from his book “Dreams from My Father. It reveals a lot about the way we view the world’s problems. Obama is in Kenya and wants to go on a safari. His Kenyan sister Auma chides him for behaving like a neo-colonialist. …
WASHINGTON: Jews worry for a living; their tragic history compels them to do so. In the next few years, there will be plenty to worry about, particularly when it comes to Israel. The current operation in Gaza won t do much to ease these worries or to address Israel s longer-term security needs. The potential …
NEW YORK: In recent years, emerging-market countries, including those in Asia, have made impressive strides in strengthening their fundamentals, accelerating their economic growth and cushioning themselves against external shocks. Nevertheless, as the events of recent months have shown, emerging markets are not immune from the current bout of global financial turmoil. In particular, slowing global …
JERUSALEM: In the final days of Hanukah, the holiday on which we focus on the struggle between Jewish and Hellenistic culture, we wrote this year another chapter in our own Greek tragedy. As in so many stories, the way we understand it depends on the point at which we choose for our story to begin. …
I read in a newspaper this week an article carrying this wise headline: If only the Palestinians had accepted the partition resolution . If only Nasser had accepted Israel s peace offer . If only they had not formed the Palestinian Authority and government. Despite the contradiction in this title – between wishing the partition …
As Egypt stepped up its mediation efforts to secure a ceasefire, holding intense meetings in Cairo with Hamas and Israeli officials, and despite mixed messages about both sides’ sentiments vis-a-vis the Egyptian proposal, Israel continued its relentless destruction of Gaza. News reports about the meetings have been both confused and confusing, especially that at the …
TAPPAN, NY: Dr. Rick Warren, pastor at Saddleback Church in California and President-elect Barack Obama’s controversial choice to give the invocation at his inauguration, gave a speech at the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s 20th anniversary event on Dec. 23, 2008. His inclusion in the agenda came as a surprise to many, given the often-conservative tone …
CAIRO: In Tahani Rashed’s award-winning “El Banat Dol (Those Girls), a documentary about street children, a teenage girl describes how she doesn’t fight back when men gang up and rape her, one after the other. By giving in to their assault, she explains, she avoids being locked up in a room to be raped repeatedly …
JERUSALEM: In Iran, elements from within the regime are reportedly offering a $1 million reward for the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak because of his opposition to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In Lebanon, the leader of Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, merely calls for the Egyptian government’s overthrow. In response to this, …
PRINCETON: The history of finance is partly the history of a struggle for a stable, secure way to measure value. And, like any quest for certainty in our unpredictable world, it was doomed to failure. The latest financial crisis powerfully highlights this vulnerability, as it destroys any sense that we can put an accurate price …
WASHINGTON DC: From an Israeli perspective, the cost in international outrage and Palestinian civilian lives of the current attacks on Gaza is worth the price of crushing Hamas’s firepower. The goal is seductive, and Israel will likely succeed in slowing the development of rockets by Hamas in the short term. But just like Israel’s siege …
CAIRO: Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, the official Egyptian propaganda machine has been working at full capacity, but what it has produced is a mixture of sheer lies and half-truths. There is a political and moral imperative to evaluate the basic arguments of that machine. 1. Hamas is responsible for the war …
Israel s Operation Cast Lead had its Qana moment on January 7. Some 40 civilians were killed when Israel mistakenly attacked a United Nations school sheltering civilians. The incident was reminiscent of heavy Lebanese civilian casualties caused by the IDF in Kafr Qana in South Lebanon in 1996 and again in 2006; in both cases, …
CAIRO: “Why do they hate us? my son asked me when he saw the Palestinian children who were killed by the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip. The question surprised me because my boy is less than four years old, but he cries every day when he watches the horrific scenes of Palestinian children. I …
CAIRO: Why do they hate us, my son asked me when he saw the Palestinian children who were killed by the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip. The question surprised me because my boy is under than four years old, but he cries every day when he watches the horrific scenes of Palestinian children. I …
NEW DELHI: As Israeli planes and tanks exact a heavy toll on Gaza, India’s leaders and strategic thinkers have been watching with an unusual degree of interest – and some empathy. India’s government has, no surprise, joined the rest of the world in calling for an end to the military action, but its criticism of …
CAMBRIDGE: The world economy enters 2009 with more uncertainty (and anxiety) than at any time in recent memory. Although the financial crisis appears to be contained in the United States and Europe, its full repercussions will not be clear for some time. The advanced countries are in for the worst economic downturn since the Great …
TEL AVIV: During the military operations in Gaza, code-named “Fused Lead (after a Hanukkah song about a small spinning top – one of that holiday’s symbols – made out of fused lead), we Israelis have been reminded of a fundamental fact: Gaza is not Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or even Lebanon. It is a region composed …
WASHINGTON: These are terrible days for those of us who long to see Israel finally accepted by its neighbors. At a time when all 22 Arab states have offered Israel peace and normalization in exchange for the territories occupied in 1967, this war could destroy that possibility once and for all. No, that does not …
CAMBRIDGE: National self-determination seems a straightforward moral principle, but it is fraught with problems. After Russia sent troops into Georgia in August 2008, it recognized the independence of two breakaway Georgian provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. When few other states followed its example, Russia pointed out that the NATO countries had used force to help …
