Middle East & Israel

In a much-noted speech late last month, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ostensibly made a dramatic reversal in course. But I am wondering whether to take his shift at face value. Mr. Sharon announced that the "road map," a U.S. plan that envisions Israel and the...

On December 15, 1791, 212 years ago, the American Bill of Rights was ratified. Thus ended a long and difficult process by which the American people first liberated themselves from tyranny and then established the first government in history founded on individual...

In the preceding sections, we have evaluated the Bush administration's approach toward America's enemies, and the supporters of its enemies. In these categories, we have found that while the United States has taken some extremely limited steps to defend itself, it has...

Stay the course -- but change the course. That was the meaning of the sudden, sharp, and understated change in Washington's Iraq policy earlier this month. After the American civilian administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, made a hurried visit to the White House,...

Can we finish our mission in Iraq? Or do we need to withdraw? It all depends on what the meaning of the word "mission" is. If our mission was to remove Saddam Hussein from power, then we're done. If our mission was to remove Saddam Hussein and install an...

While the objectives of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan differed significantly, their shortcomings had much in common. Whereas the war with Iraq was justified by reference to evidence of a somewhat indeterminate WMD threat, the case for war in Afghanistan was based...

Despite the rapidity and efficiency of the American war in Iraq--and the glowing moments accompanying the liberation of Baghdad--the Bush administration has confronted a series of embarrassments since major combat operations were declared over on May 1st. The worst of...

Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq. But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off. That's because the Iraqis soon will enjoy something we don't -- a simple and fair tax system. Beginning in January, all Iraqis...

Three years after the Palestinians' violent response to the most generous and practical proposal by an Israeli government to end the decades-long conflict, hatred directed at Israel as a Jewish State has never been as extreme. From paeans to homicide bombings by...

What to do in Iraq? The question is made urgent by the steady attrition of coalition forces, punctuated by seven large car-bomb explosions. The latest of them, on Sunday, killed six and wounded dozens at the Baghdad Hotel. More broadly, the briefly held gratitude to...

Israel's proposed border fence, a necessary physical separation between a lawful nation and its homicidal neighbors, is a powerful symbol of the political gulf separating the West from the Arab world. When Israel was founded, its inhabitants established the only...

Voices on the left argue that Iraq will become a "quagmire" because of U.S. "arrogance" and "unilateralism." They are actually half-right: disaster may indeed be looming--but only because of a lack of self-assertiveness by the United States. We are inviting failure in...

"I have developed a habit," writes Richard Ingrams, a columnist for The Guardian, a far-left British newspaper, "when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I...

Israel's recent release of approximately 400 prisoners - including 210 members of known Arab terrorist organizations - is immoral, as those released directly threaten the lives of Israelis. Though the Palestinian Intifada officially ended -- for a brief period at...

In an agreement brokered last month by U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Palestinian terrorist groups agreed to a temporary cease-fire on condition that Israel ceases its practice of "targeted killings" (executing would-be terrorists before they have a...

Pundits say creating a free Iraq means "democratically" divvying up political power among its various religious and ethnic factions. "[We need] to make sure all the different groups get a fair shot," said Senator Trent Lott recently. That just goes to show how far...

Israel's proposed border fence, a necessary physical separation between a lawful nation and its homicidal neighbors, is a powerful symbol of the political gulf separating the West from the Arab world. When Israel was founded, its inhabitants established the only...

The bromide, often quoted today, that we have won the war but now we have to "win the peace," is meant to remind us that we have to turn from achieving our military goals to achieving our political goals in Iraq. But what if our political goals were such that...