The era of U.S.-approved, iron-fisted Arab dictators is over. Washington must get used to a Middle East in which public opinion matters to a much greater extent, anti-Western sentiment abounds and political Islam emerges as a major force.
Congress is paralyzed. National debt is skyrocketing. America’s political consensus can no longer address the country’s most basic problems. We must resolve the question of what will replace it.
Despite a veneer of democracy, this oil-rich nation has suffered from dysfunctional governance for decades, and tensions between the Christian South and the Muslim North are rising. Nigeria needs creative American diplomacy.
Iraq faces major questions about the power-sharing agreements between Baghdad and Iraq's various regions. A solution may require granting greater autonomy to the country's Kurds than to other regions.
There's a dangerous illusion in the legend that Reagan changed course in Cold War policy and set the country on a path to expansive overseas adventurism. Beware of false lessons about his stewardship.
The National Interest stands for realism in U.S. international relations, a conviction that foreign policy should be based upon real-world considerations—forces, pressures and passions emanating from factors of culture and geography.
Rockefeller, Lindsay, Scranton—just three of the “moderates” who failed to keep the GOP from the clutches of Goldwater and Nixon. Geoffrey Kabaservice laments their defeat with a wistfulness that obscures from him their true frustration.
The English-language news channel of Al Jazeera consistently is first on the scene of Mideastern developments, and its journalists provide smart analysis of global events. It may be today’s most influential television-news operation.
