For many, Israel’s founding is shrouded in mysticism. But there is a battle raging among the historians of the Holy Land. The current stalemate is a story of bad actions on both sides. Beware those who rewrite narratives.
Last summer, Russia and Georgia came to blows. Tbilisi’s pro-American president believed NATO would protect him in a fight with the big, bad bear.
America has at times oriented itself to the East, at others to the West. But what we have always had is a sense of our manifest destiny. And now the ideals of California—nihilism with a suntan—seem to be our primary ideological export.
Despite Goldhagen's extraordinary claims, he himself concedes in his unwittingly revealing afterword that he is not presenting much in the way of original research.
Iraq has a long and tortured history. Home to the tyrant, the origins of despotism lie in the primordial ooze of the Mesopotamian swamp. Yet for a brief moment fifty years ago, the land of two rivers experienced democracy.
Morris turns to the origins of the one-state and two-state conceptions. It helps explain how the Israelis and Palestinians got themselves into this intractable conflict in the first place.
Stopping torture and changing the policies of the Bush administration may not be enough. With a whole new type of terrorist bred from extraordinary rendition and torture, the last eight years may well prove inescapable.
The conservative movement is cracking up—just look at three memoirs of former administration officials. These new books may engage in justification and self-aggrandizement, but they do prescribe salves for fixing the conservative experiment.
The Bush administration may have gotten a lot wrong, but there is still hope for America’s policy in the Middle East. Three books shed some light on how the United States can get over Iraq.
The much-vaunted surge has made Iraq safer. But more boots in the desert is not the only reason security has improved. As U.S. forces get ready to leave, we have to face some inconvenient political realities.