Articles

Delivering her Nobel Lecture after a 21-year delay, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi offered a timely reminder from the front lines of struggle.

“To be forgotten,” she said in her October 16th address in Oslo, “… is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. When I met Burmese migrant workers and refugees during my recent visit to Thailand, many cried out, ‘Don’t forget us!’ They meant: ‘Don’t forget our plight, don’t forget to do what you can to help us, don’t forget we also belong to your world.’

On Wednesday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Brazil for his first state visit to the South American nation since 2009. The ostensible reason is to attend the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, a high-profile gathering of more than 100 heads of state taking place in Rio de Janeiro. But high on Ahmadinejad’s priority list is an important bit of diplomacy: reinvigorating the once-robust ties between Tehran and Brasilia. For Iran, Brazil is a potential economic lifeline in the face of mounting international pressure.

On Monday and Tuesday, all eyes will be on Russia as it hosts the third round in the troubled international negotiations now under way between Iran and the West over the former's nuclear program.

How real is the potential for cyberwar? The growing attention being given to cyberspace by policymakers and the media alike reflects an inescapable reality. With government agencies and private companies under frequent attack in cyberspace, and with incidents of cyber espionage increasing in both intensity and frequency, it would be fair to say that the U.S. is already engaged in battle in cyberspace.

Bernard Lewis’ new book, Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian, written at the age of 95, is essentially his autobiography. Since he is, above all, a scholar, much of his life has been thinking and writing. Not surprisingly, the book recounts the gestational process of a number of his major works. Lewis is the author of more than 30 books. This leads him to wonder, in 100 years, which of his works will be remembered? I venture to say that it will not be this one, nor does he mean it to be. This is a breezy, episodic, conversational book of reflections, aperçus, anecdotes, and some very sharp observations. It is what is called a “good read.” It is not particularly profound or deep. It only glancingly refers to ideas that Lewis has developed at greater length in his earlier works. He refers to them rather than repeating them, and places their development in the context of his long life.