E-Notes

Unfortunately, since I wrote on the situation in Kenya last month, the prospects have not improved and the country appears to be headed off a cliff. A series of mediators have failed to achieve any productive talks between the...

On December 3, 2007, the U.S. intelligence community declassified the key judgments portion of the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities.” Critics of the Bush administration have seized upon the document as proof positive...

While most Americans were preoccupied with the holidays, Bowl games, and the Iowa caucus, Kenya had a presidential election. As African elections go, it went off pretty well. There were long lines, and a record number of people were...

12th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs: My venturing into public discussions on the intersection between religion and politics is not something that I chose, but rather something I felt obliged to do after 9/11. Prior to...

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report asserted that the United States is engaged in a “long war” against Islamic terrorism, a war that is now centered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially a nuclear Pakistan. Containing violent Islamic extremism, however, is just...

President Bush’s long-awaited and much-demanded personal engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian tangle has finally begun. Visiting Jerusalem and Ramallah in early January 2008, he announced his role: Nudge-in-Chief. Then, refreshed by visits to the wellsprings of Christianity, the President reiterated...

The Kuomintang won a sweeping victory in Taiwan’s parliamentary elections on January 12, 2008. This, and the enhanced prospect for a KMT victory in the March 2008 presidential vote, brought relief in Washington, Beijing and elsewhere that Taiwan’s lively...

The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is an awkward document, one subject to widely divergent interpretations, but providing a more benign assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities than probably is warranted. It judges with moderate to high confidence that...

The best way for a big power to fight an insurgency is to avoid fighting it in the first instance by helping solve the political issue that created the conflict, thus drying up support for the insurgents. The second...

The Middle East Peace Conference convened by the United States on November 27, 2007, met in a spirit of easily restrained enthusiasm. Unlike the last formal relaunch of Arab-Israeli negotiations — Madrid 1991 — this was an assembly of...