The dramatic news about Osama bin Laden’s death, especially when taken in combination with the ongoing “Arab Spring,” offers a remarkable window of opportunity for U.S. policymakers seeking to encourage what President Obama has called an “alternative narrative” for a disaffected generation in the Islamic world.For years after Sept. 11, 2001, military and counterterrorism efforts dominated the U.S.

Viewpoints May 3, 2011

The death of Osama bin Laden rightly brings to Americans a sense of justice, even revenge. But the death of the world’s most wanted man is more than payback for the past.It instead suggests that ideology may be changing in the Arab world. Bin Laden’s ideology of death ― for Americans, Europeans, Arabs and others ― was a reaction to the misery to which many Arabs were consigned in the modern world.

Viewpoints May 3, 2011

Over the years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has served in a variety of capacities in national security for administrations of both parties. He has been a steady hand and he will be sorely missed.But his intention to leave this year was well-known. What was surprising about Wednesday’s news was the sweeping nature of the national-security shuffle expected to be announced by President Barack Obam

Viewpoints May 2, 2011

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

Viewpoints May 2, 2011

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

Viewpoints May 1, 2011

“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

Viewpoints May 1, 2011

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

Viewpoints May 1, 2011

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

Viewpoints May 1, 2011

The government is renewing its efforts to advance the service industry. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance has disclosed a new action plan that called for, among other things, a basic law on the promotion of the service industry, the introduction of for-profit hospitals and allowing sales of nonprescription drugs at supermarkets and convenience stores.The renewed push for the service sector is w

Editorial April 29, 2011

The Financial Supervisory Service is in need of drastic reform. The recent series of problems at financial companies and corruption cases involving FSS officials have shown the regulator is not only ineffectual in promoting stability and soundness of the financial market but is corrupt to the bone. In his inaugural address on March 28, FSS Chairman Kwon Hyuk-se disclosed his vision of making the r

Editorial April 29, 2011

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

Viewpoints April 29, 2011

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

Viewpoints April 29, 2011