Politics & Current Affairs

“Do we inflate the menace of Islamic Jihad in order to justify the war in Afghanistan?” Robert Wright wonders if our simplification of Muslim motives squeezes relevant facts out of picture.

Journalist Jere Van Dyk stopped by the Big Think offices today to recount his gripping tale of survival after being captured and imprisoned by the Taliban in 2008. Van Dyk, […]

Of the 4.7 million Iraqis displaced by the war, 100,000 have been relocated, one-third of those to the U.S. The Guardian echoes calls to expedite refugee processing and to provide counselling services.

David Brooks at the New York Times says the exposure journalism that ousted McCrystal does a disservice to everyone by creating mistrust between the government and the press.

China’s currency, the renminbi, closed Friday at its strongest level against the US dollar since China revamped its currency policies in 2005, The New York Times reported. This development comes […]

Eliot Spitzer will be returning to media spotlight once again, albeit under very different circumstances. The New York Times reports that Spitzer, the former Democratic governor of New York, has […]

Former Islamabad CIA station chief Rob Grenier calls the row over General McCrystal’s remarks a “foolish spectacle” and sees in it evidence of the impossible situation in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has announced plans to bolster security along the U.S. border with Mexico, The New York Times reported today. In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi […]

“Why would a top military commander allow a journalist so much unfettered access to his inner circle?” Jeremy W. Peters on why Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal let down his guard.

Having staggered through one recession—and without emerging the other side of it—Britain now seems destined for another. This time it will really hurt. A Martian arriving in London, or rather […]

Generals sometimes become presidents. Our nation’s first president became a full general posthumously. Eleven other generals rose to the rank of commander-in-chief. So I don’t have a problem with General […]

“The Supreme Court’s ruling that advising terrorist groups to pursue their goals peacefully is ‘material support’ of their violent activities is wrongheaded,” says an L.A. Times editorial.

“The filibuster has been perverted to derail proposals that some members simply don’t like. The Senate should ban it,” says the L.A. Times. The legislative tool isn’t what it used to be.

The New Yorker reviews Peter Beinart’s new book on American foreign policy and finds a tale of American leaders coping with the effects of unprecedented mistakes following the rise of the U.S.

The New Statesman ruminates on what democracy might look like in an Islamic republic, what Eastern countries are tending that way, and why the West must make tough compromises.

German commentators think Barack Obama is in danger of turning into an idealistic, one-term president like Jimmy Carter, explains Michael Scott Moore.

A former CIA Islamabad station chief says the U.S. should strengthen its ties with the Afghan president’s little brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who leads Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

The struggle between BP and the U.S. government takes place amid a much larger conflict — over whether democratic capitalism is the best political-social-economic system, writes David Brooks.

This is inimitable Harper’s: contrasting the unbearable lightness of a medium (in this case, chat) with the often sublime depth of its subject (here, terror). One of the June issue’s […]

Charles Krauthammer disputes the Obama administration’s claims that Iran is more isolated in the world. Russia, China, Brazil and Turkey have all sought to assist Iran with its energy ambitions.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation today released over two thousand pages of its files on former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who died last year after a battle with brain cancer. […]

The U.N. essentially acquiesced to a nuclear Middle East, says Massoud Parsi at Al Jazeera, by approving sanctions against Iran that were watered down by Russia and China to the point of being meaningless.

The Pentagon is on the lookout for 260,000 classified U.S. embassy messages that have allegedly been given to WikiLeaks by a former American intelligence analyst in Iraq.

NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan asks: How can we account for the success of Indian American political candidates in the South given the region’s history of institutionalized racism?

“It is a sad finale for someone who helped break down barriers for women journalists at the center of American power,” so says the L.A. Times of Helen Thomas.

“Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often,” says Peter Beinart.

Former CIA station chief and director of counter-terrorism, Robert Grenier says peace efforts in Afghanistan demonstrate a house divided against itself — an open ended civil war could follow.

Instead of reacting to the Sunday morning political shows, I figured I’d beat them to the punch. “Cheney’s Katrina” has a nice ring to it. All the guests seem to […]

America’s long-term influence depends on its defense of an open, global society, writes The Economist: America must build a society that welcomes immigrants as well as trade.