In The News

Containment, Not Appeasement

Ian Shapiro January 17, 2007
Despite substantial opposition both in the US and around the globe, the Bush administration resisted containment of Saddam Hussein and led the invasion of Iraq. Struggling to control the nation almost four years later, the US president resists diplomacy with characters who happen to be neighbors to Iraq. Containment is not appeasement, argues Yale political science professor Ian Shapiro. If the...

Let's Burn the Burqa

Taslima Nasrin January 17, 2007
Women wear burqas to conceal their faces and bodies from public view. Writer Taslima Nasrin reviews the history and many theories offered about the personal and social motives behind the concealment: The burqa may constrain sexual reactions from other people, or women may simply want privacy, refusing to endure any stares. Some opponents argue that the burqa reduces women to the status of sexual...

Legacy of a Terrorist

William O'Malley January 16, 2007
Skilled terrorists are persuasive, strategic and analytical – and a good example of this is the Indonesian terrorist leader, Hambali, who has pursued his goal of bringing Muslim nations under Islamic rule. The operations chief of the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, Hambali has been jailed by the US since 2003, but the vast network of recruits he had developed prior to his arrest continue...

Opening Up the Transatlantic Market

Daniel S. Hamilton January 15, 2007
Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany and president of the G-8, urges a transatlantic free-trade agreement. Except for a few high-profile squabbles, trade barriers between the two continents are already low and the US Senate has already given its approval of such an agreement, note transatlantic analysts Daniel Hamilton and Joseph Quinlan. The authors point out that a US state like Illinois has...

Shades of Cambodia

Harold Meyerson January 12, 2007
US President Bush announced publicly that the US will “seek out and destroy” any networks supplying weapons or training to “our enemies in Iraq. Bush’s stance defies the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of former high-level government officials who suggested that the US rely on diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors rather than military solutions. In an essay for “...

African Search for Peace Throws Court into Crisis

Chris McGreal January 11, 2007
The International Criminal Court’s first indictment was against the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Uganda, Joseph Kony and four other commanders. The Ugandan government requested that the ICC investigate the matter, expecting that neighboring governments would withdraw support of the LRA. But the Ugandan government has reversed itself, now asking the ICC to drop the indictments if...

Is Southeast Asia Becoming China’s Playpen?

Sheng Lijun January 11, 2007
China never had to exert massive military might or economic investment to gain influence in Southeast Asia. After the US resumed relations with the mainland, members of the Association of South-East Asia Nations (ASEAN) followed suit. During the Cold War, the US aimed to dilute Soviet influence in the region and encouraged collaboration. With the US increasingly distracted in the Middle East,...