Roundup: Historians' Take

Barry Rubin: Nationalists Versus Islamists ... The Middle East’s Titanic Battle

[Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs, and author of The Truth About Syria.] The Middle East is in a new era, very different from the politics and strategic situation we have been used to for so long. For 55 years the region has lived under Arab nationalist dominance. Every Arab regime, except perhaps Sudan, is Arab natio

Peter C. Rollins: Another Tet Offensive in the Summer of 2007?

[Peter C. Rollins is the Producer/Director of Television’s Vietnam. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University after serving as a Marine Officer, 1963-66. He has written nearly 100 journal publications and is author or co-author of numerous books devoted to visual literacy, to include The Columbia Companion to American History on Film (2004).] The Tet offensive of 1968 was a turning point for the Vietnam war and is a model for what may happen during the late Summer of 2007. As Genera

Eric Rauchway: Karl Rove and the common people

Karl Rove deserves to be remembered as the man who thought Americans should have enough education to understand his fables but not enough to doubt them. Here's Rove, according to Nicholas Lemann in 2001 (The New Yorker doesn't seem to have it online): Our education plan allows us to make further gains in the suburbs. It will also allow us to make gains with Hispanics and African-Americans. ... As people do better, they start voting like Republicans -- unless they have to

Victor Davis Hanson: The Burdens of General Petraeus

[Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University , a professor emeritus at California University , Fresno , and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.] Several governments have defeated Islamic insurgencies, but usually only after about ten years, and adopting policies of summary executions and carpet bombing or shelling. The Algerians in the 1990s finally stopped the so-called Islamic Salvation Army. The R

Michael T. Klare: The New Energy Pessimism

[Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum. His newest book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, will be published in the spring of 2008 by Metropolitan Books.] When

Donald Ritchie: The Rise and Fall of the First Internet

[Donald Ritchie, author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, has been Associate Historian of the United States Senate for more than three decades.]

Eric Alterman: FISA and the Founders

[Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow of the Center for American Progress, a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College, and Professor of Journalism at the new CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. His weblog, “Altercation," appears at www.mediamatters.org/altercation, His seventh book, Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, will appear early next year.] Congress’ rush to its August recess

Tom Engelhardt: What "Progress" in Iraq Really Means

[Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and, most recently, the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books).] Someday, we will undoubtedly discover that, in the term"surge" -- as in the President's"surge" plan (or"n

Daniel Pipes: Stop the NYC Madrassa

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] When Dhabah"Debbie" Almontaser resigned as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy on August 10, her action culminated a remarkable grassroots campaign in which concerned citizens successfully criticized the New York City establishment. But the fight goes on. Th

Gary Leupp: Bush Warns Puppets Not to Praise Iran

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu] Hamid Karzai, hand-picked by Washington to pose as president of the broken country of Afghanistan, says his government has “very, very good, very, very close relations [and] will continue to have good relations with Iran.” He declares on

Barry Rubin: Don't count on Abbas to bring peace

[Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.] Is there a window of opportunity for Israel-Palestinian peace right now? Let me put it this way: in diplomatic terms, looking through the window is worthwhile but, in analytical terms, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to climb through it. The problem of the current situation pose

Gavan McCormack: Japan as a Nuclear State

[Gavan McCormack is an emeritus professor of Australian National University, a coordinator of Japan Focus, and author of the just published Client State: Japan in the American Embrace. Below is a brief introduction posted especially for Japan Focus. The Japan Focus website includes an excerpt from Professor McCormack's book.] The nuclear question in relation to Japan is commonly understood in the narrow sense of whether Japan might one day opt to produce its own nuclear weapons, b

Juan Cole: Pakistani Protests against Obama

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] I'm going to hear Senator Barack Obama on Saturday afternoon at the Yearly Kos convention. Will report back on Sunday about his remarks. On Thursday, he said he would not use nuclear weapons against al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, then backed up and said"scratch that," there had been no discussion of nuclear weapons.

Victor Davis Hanson: Why they hate, and like, us.

[Historian Victor Davis Hanson is the author of Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq.] ... Contrast all that dislike with those nations who appreciate the United States, which tells us something much different about America’s role in the world. The Kenyans and Ghanaians, for example, reveal more admiration for the United States (87 and 80 percent, respectively) than do we Americans ourselves. In fact, all of sub-Saharan Africa — poor and with a past o

Eric Rauchway: Liberals Love Barry Goldwater!? That's Not Right.

[Eric Rauchway is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, and the author, most recently, of Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America and Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America.] Liberals love Barry Goldwater, the late five-term Arizona senator who launched the modern conservative movement. In the HBO documentary Mr. Conservative, now out on DVD, Goldwater gets glowing praise from Democrats Edward Kennedy and Hillary Clinton; th

Andrew Bacevich: The Overhyping of David Petraeus

[Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is the editor of The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II. ] ... Although the deluded and disingenuous may persist in pretending otherwise, his mission is not to "win" the Iraq war. Coalition forces in Iraq are not fighting to achieve victory. Their purpose is far more modest. According to [David] Petraeus himself, U.S. troops and their a

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Starbucks gets the boot, but don't blame it on Mao

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, a history professor at the University of California at Irvine, is the author of "China's Brave New World -- And Other Tales for Global Times."] Mao Tse-tung used to celebrate "contradictions" as the driving force behind history. So what would he make of the contradictory pulls shaping Chinese politics today? Consider two recent news stories: One on the closing of a Starbucks at the edge of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the o

Dean Baker: Economy Goes From Bad to Worse

[Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog,"Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can

Robert Miller: Russia uses the Doctrine of Discovery to claim the Arctic floor

[Robert Miller is a Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland Oregon, the chief justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe and a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. His new book Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny explains the Doctrine and how it was developed in Europe and then applied in North America up to the recent day.]

Gabriele Marranci : The day I met Kafeel Ahmed

[Gabriele Marranci is a Lecturer in the Anthropology of Religion School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, King's College, University of Aberdeen.] It was during the autumn of 2001 that I met Kafeel Ahmed, a fellow student at Queen’s University of Belfast. I was a PhD student in the anthropology department, researching Muslims in Northern Ireland and Europe; he was a student in aeronautical engineering. Kafeel, an Indian Muslim born in Bangalore, was a very active member of