[John R. Bolton] Tough call on Afghan troop withdrawal

President Obama must soon make a critical decision: how many and what type of U.S. forces to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan this summer. The July withdrawal date is an artificial deadline, one the president created not because it would help us reach our goals in this strategically critical country but for his own domestic political purposes. When Obama made the promise in 2009, at the same tim

May 2, 2011

[Rana Sabbagh] Jordan’s king needs to set out reform process

While turmoil threatens the regimes of many of its neighbors, conditions in Jordan have remained relatively calm. Although we have had more than 150 protests across Jordan since before the fall of the Tunisian regime, all demanding accountability, better living conditions, and an end to corruption and wider political reform, nobody has called for regime change ― so far.The reason is simple. King A

May 2, 2011

Japan Diet shows some respect for diplomacy

It has long been accepted for the Japanese prime minister and other Cabinet members to cancel official visits to foreign nations because of Diet deliberation schedules. Japan’s standing on the diplomatic stage is thus degraded, and national interests are negatively affected. Such a long-standing but wrongheaded custom must end now.Ruling and opposition parties have agreed to allow Foreign Minister

May 1, 2011

President Barack Obama: Born in the U.S.A.

“Well, I’ll be damned. It looks OK!”That was Chicago’s own Andy Martin ― self-proclaimed “King of the Birthers” ― on the phone with a reporter for Mother Jones magazine after the White House released a copy of President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate on Wednesday.Martin, who announced in December that he’s running for president on the Obama-wasn’t-born-here ticket, brags that he starte

May 1, 2011

[Jennifer A. Marshall] Marriage an ideal, not a fairy tale

An audience of 750 million tuned in July 29, 1981, to watch Lady Diana Spencer marry the Prince of Wales.In America, little girls were glued to the television from before dawn, enthralled by Diana’s dress with its billows of silk taffeta, 10,000 pearls and 25-foot train. To a young girl’s eye, the only blemish of this perfect day was that the bride’s signature feathered hair succumbed to the summe

May 1, 2011

[William Pesek] If Bill Gross sees U.S. as shaky, check Japan

Salvador Dali or M.C. Escher? This question leaps to the mind navigating the ruins of Japanese cities like Tagajo. Skylines now look as if Dali’s surrealist brush had a hand in rendering things so out of place. Escher’s mind seems at work, too. Interlocking shapes that shouldn’t exist in the three-dimensional world litter cityscapes that before March 11’s earthquake and tsunami were pretty run of

May 1, 2011

Syrian president shoots democracy advocates

When pro-democracy protesters began rallying a few weeks ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad set out to change their tune. He has succeeded, though not quite as he hoped.At the beginning, demonstrators wanted the longtime dictator to embrace political reform, and he made some gestures in that direction, such as lifting a 48-year-old state of emergency law. Now, they don’t want him to embrace reform

April 29, 2011

Greenhouse gases: Too hot for the courts

Despite the rants of some conservative politicians and fringe scientists, it’s a fact that greenhouse gases produced by human activity contribute to global warming. Last week the Supreme Court considered one way that such emissions might be controlled: through a huge and unwieldy lawsuit brought by California and five other states against five power companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Se

April 29, 2011

[Doyle McManus] Breaking point in Libya

Like most wars, NATO’s five-week-old campaign to overthrow Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi has turned out to be harder than it looked.The leaders of Britain, France and the United States, who launched the intervention, initially hoped Gadhafi’s regime would collapse quickly ― toppled either by popular uprisings or, more likely, by dissident generals.But that hasn’t happened, at least not yet.Instead, Gadh

April 29, 2011

[Editorial] Anticorruption commission under attack

With the war on terrorism far from over, Indonesia has seen mounting attacks on corruption fighters, despite the nationwide acceptance that graft is an extraordinary crime, separate from terrorism. A plan by the House of Representatives to revise Law No. 30/2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is widely seen as the latest foray intended to weaken the anticorruption drive.Sadly, the

April 29, 2011

[Editorial] Diplomatic sport

Such is the Indian and Pakistani leadership’s obsession with high-profile “event-oriented” diplomacy that they sought to exploit the craze for cricket to revitalize people-to-people contact without taking two realities into consideration. One, that the cricketing calendar was overcrowded, the players so heavily committed, that squeezing in even a short bilateral series was virtually impossible; tw

April 29, 2011

[Editorial] Spectacle to the rescue of old institutions

The coming royal wedding in England and the beatification of Pope John Paul II in Rome will afford the world a chance to see how two ancient institutions ― the monarchy and the papacy ― reinforce their claim to perpetuity and continuing relevance by a show of pomp and pageantry. Supposed to be historical rivals, especially considering their religious wars since the 16th century, these two institut

April 29, 2011

Japan’s economy feels the effects of quake

The government in its monthly report released in mid-April downgraded its basic assessment of the Japanese economy for the first time in six months. It said the March 11 catastrophe is causing downward pressure on exports, production and consumption.Although there is a view that the economy will start to pick up around July, partly assisted by increased demand linked to reconstruction projects, th

April 28, 2011

Cuba needs to adapt to economic realities

Last week, Cuban President Raul Castro endorsed sweeping economic reforms, proposed term limits for government and Communist Party officials, and conceded that the party’s failure to groom a new generation of leaders will make it harder to find a successor.The proposed reforms could usher in major changes. For the first time since the 1959 revolution, the government would allow Cubans to own and s

April 28, 2011