The National Interest - NUMBER 95, MAY/JUN 2008


The Realist

by J. Robinson West
We may well need to be worried, we're running out of gas while choosing the next president to sit in the driver's seat.


Articles

by Joseph E. Stiglitz
The odds are against developing countries when it comes to trade. Social safeguards level the playing field.

by Geoffrey Kemp
Finding monsters under the bed and bogeymen in the closet. Why exaggerating the Iranian threat is bad for U.S. foreign policy.

by Peter A. Wilson, Lowell Schwartz and Howard J. Shatz
The world may be getting ready to ally against us—and that’s not even the worst-case scenario.

by Lincoln A. Mitchell
Is the democracy cure a panacea or a placebo?

by Robert B. Zoellick
TNI's Justine A. Rosenthal sits down with World Bank chief Robert B. Zoellick.

by Andrew Kohut and Richard Wike
"Simply put, America’s image in much of the Muslim world remains abysmal." With the deepening and unrelenting challenges we face in the Middle East, how much has America’s image in the Muslim world declined? And what can we do to reverse the trends? What an analysis of the polling numbers says about America’s reputation.

by Andrew Kohut and Richard Wike
"Simply put, America’s image in much of the Muslim world remains abysmal." With the deepening and unrelenting challenges we face in the Middle East, how much has America’s image in the Muslim world declined? And what can we do to reverse the trends? What an analysis of the polling numbers says about America’s reputation.

by Gary Hufbauer
Rhetoric aside, free trade can benefit everyone—if only countries were a little more open to the rules of the game.

by Gary Hufbauer and Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph Stiglitz and Gary Hufbauer debate the issue. Hufbauer cringes: " ‘Opting out’ of NAFTA is the sort of suggestion that can only surface on the campaign trail." But Stiglitz dissents: "The links between trade liberalization and growth are far weaker than its advocates claim."

by Glenn Greenwald
A look at the absurd pronouncements of the political class from Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. Why do pundits get to be wrong all the time? From the May/June 2008 issue of The National Interest.

by Thomas E. Graham
The road to a solution for America’s Iran problem runs through Moscow. How to think about the costs—and benefits.

by Brad Setser
A second look at the threat of global financial annihilation.

by Stefan Wolff
How to contain the virus of ethnic conflict.


Books & Reviews

by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky
With the campaign season heating up, David Rivkin reviews new books by the top foreign-policy advisors to Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Problem is, Madeleine Albright and Zbigniew Brzezinski might not provide the soundest counsel to the presidential hopefuls.

by Mark Gilbert
Walter Rusell Mead glosses over British history in God and Gold; Brendan Simms paints a clearer picture in Three Victories and a Defeat.

by Marcel H. Van Herpen
Will France call the whole thing off?