Articles

When he takes office on January 20th, 2009, the next President of the United States will have to contend with a range of pressing issues, from a global economic slowdown to soaring energy prices and a domestic housing market in crisis. On the foreign policy front, however, none will be as urgent as dealing with the persistent nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran. How the United States responds to Iran’s atomic drive will, to a large extent, dictate the shape of American strategy toward the greater Middle East for the foreseeable future.ÂÂ

It is now seven years after 9/11. The attack designed to change the world has done so, but not in ways its planners predicted, or any Americans anticipated. The United States had been on autopilot in the 1990s, expecting the world to evolve on its own, believing that progress would arrive as the result of historic forces that required no leadership, demanded no sacrifice. But nature abhors a vacuum, and into the void stepped a small group of ultra-violent radicals with a program of their own. Through a combination of methodical planning, strategic audaciousness and a bit of luck, they pulled off an attack that brought about the new world in a matter of hours.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia this week was intended to reinforce relations with Kyiv and Baku and to restore those with Tbilisi. Georgia's brief war with Russia has negated impressive economic progress, eviscerated the country's U.S.-built military, and shattered expectations of a better future for its people. Many Georgians feel betrayed by Washington in this crisis, but the United States has seen its advice ignored and its assistance wasted.

Romantic nationalism has been a curse in many countries in the past century, notably in 1990s Serbia. Now, Georgia pays the price. Most commentaries on the South Ossetia conflict describe this dispute as starting in 1992, with the Russian-imposed no-war, no-peace status quo destroyed by the recent fighting. This is comparable to discussing the Cyprus problem only from the 1974 Turkish invasion. History matters, and nowhere more so than in ethnic disputes.

The first days of August brought with them news that one of Russia’s great public figures, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, had died at the age of 89. There are a great many reasons to mourn his passing. During his more than six decades in the public spotlight, Solzhenitsyn was an intellectual giant, a courageous opponent of Soviet repression, a crusader against communism’s excesses, and a champion of moral truth in a system that brooked no ideological opposition. For me, however, he was also much more.