Roundup: Historians' Take

Nadia Kizenko: Behind the headlines of Putin's embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church

[Ms. Kizenko is an associate professor of history at the State University of New York at Albany.] Last week, on the Christian feast of the Ascension, leaders of the émigré Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia agreed to re-establish "canonical communion" with the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate. Thousands stood in line to attend the celebration at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. But this was clearly an event of more than religious significance. The attendees

Jean Edward Smith: Stretching Executive Power in Wartime

[Jean Edward Smith, the John Marshall Professor of political science at Marshall University, in Huntington, W. Va., is the author of 12 books, including biographies of Ulysses S. Grant, Chief Justice John Marshall and General Lucius D. Clay. His latest book is “F.D.R.”] “The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president,” wrote Francis Biddle, F.D.R.’s attorney general during World War II. Biddle was writing about Roosevelt’s shameful 1942 decision to evacuate Japane

Juan Cole: About Those First Formal US-Iran Talks since 1980

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com/.] The US has dealt differently with Iran than with any other of its major enemies. Then President Ronald Reagan spoke directly with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev even though the USSR had thousands of nuclear missiles aimed at the US. The US talks to North Korea. It talks to Venezuela. It doesn't tal

Tom Engelhardt: The Colossus of Baghdad

[Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), 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), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews.] Of the seven

Niall Ferguson: Putin is heading for a worrying future

[Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University.] There is no such thing as the future. There are only futures, plural. Historians are supposed to confine themselves to the study of the past, but by drawing analogies between yesterday and today, they can sometimes suggest plausible tomorrows. Seven years ago, the economist Brigitte Granville and I published an article in the Journal of Economic History entitled "Weimar on

Juan Cole: What's amazing about the new Iraq War poll numbers

It isn't amazing that 61% of Americans think the US should never have invaded Iraq. [- Courtesy NYT/CBS.] What is amazing is that 35% still think it was a good idea. It isn't amazing that 76% (including 51% of Republicans) of Americans say that the increased US troop levels in Iraq have had no impact or are making things worse. What is amazing is that 20% think that things have gotten significantly better. It isn't amazing that 63% of American

Mark Moyar: 'Worst in History'? Jimmy Carter forgets how the Democrats botched Vietnam

[Mr. Moyar is the author of "Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965" (Cambridge University Press, 2006).] Jimmy Carter made a remarkable statement late last week in telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, [the Bush] administration has been the worst in history." It was an unprecedented comment from an ex-president, someone who isn't a disinterested observer. Mr. Carter may

Martin Kramer: The Wilson Center held hostage

[Martin Kramer is the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center's Institute for International and Middle Eastern Studies in Jerusalem.] Outrage is buildi

Juan Cole: Where things stand in Iraq now

The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate blinked on a troop withdrawal timetable today. The Warner plan, which substitutes 19 benchmarks to be achieved by the Iraqi government for the exact departure dates of US troops, puts some reporting restrictions on Bush but essentially gives him free rein to continue to prosecute the Iraq War as he pleases. Despite now being technically in the min

Carl Sferrazza Anthony: If Hillary wins the White House, Bill becomes 'First Gentleman'

[Anthony is the author of 10 books on First Ladies and First Families.] Hillary Clinton gets asked the same thing over and over: if she is elected president, what will Bill do? Obviously, we've never had a woman president. But we've also never had a male First ... Lady. So let's start there. What would he be called? As the president's husband, Bill Clinton would most likely have the formal title "First Gentleman." But he would be addressed directly by his other, loftier ti

Jonathan Zimmerman: On Darfur, LeBron James drops the ball

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University.] Athletic. Amazing. Powerful. Phenomenal. America's airwaves are jammed with superlatives to describe basketball star LeBron James, who began his first semifinal playoff series this week. No matter how Mr. James's Cleveland Cavaliers fare in their matchup against the Detroit Pistons, however, I've got my own description for his off-court decisions. Cowardly. James's teammate Ira Newble rec

Eric Alterman: Why I favor building a wall on the border with Mexico

Whatever meager credibility I have on the question of immigration derives from two facts: one, I spent a week, a while back, riding around with members of the INS in San Diego chasing illegal immigrants and trying to understand their lives; and two, like most upper-middle-class Americans, I exist in a web of endless exploitation of them, sometimes knowingly, often not, though with the single exception of the two (sisters) I've tried to help with legal issues, I never actually ask about their sta

Geoffrey Perret: Looking for a Few Stand-Up Men

[Geoffrey Perret has written 13 books of history and biography, including “Ulysses S. Grant,” “Eisenhower” and “Lincoln’s War.” His most recent book is “Commander in Chief: How Truman, Johnson, and Bush Turned a Presidential Power into a Threat to America’s Future.”] What the military needs now is a number of senior generals and admirals who are willing and able to debate the president and the secretary of defense — and a president and secretary of defense who are big enough to accept di

David Greenberg: Bush Wars ... The Final Frontier

[David Greenberg, an assistant professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, N.J., is the author of three books, “Nixon’s Shadow,” “Presidential Doodles” and, most recently, “Calvin Coolidge.” He writes the “History Lesson” column for Slate.] With the title of his 1980 book, the journalist Sidney Blumenthal coined a term that has entered the political lexicon: “The Permanent Campaign.” The phrase denotes the blurring of the line in modern times between

Barry Rubin: How Syria uses violence to achieve its goals

[Barry Rubin is author of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), director of the GLORIA Center, and editor of MERIA Journal.] In the Middle East, violence is not the result of poor communication but a tool for political gain. Nothing proves that point better than Syria’s successful use of violence and terrorism to promote its interests. No amount of dialogue is going to change that reality. Now Syria is using a Palestinian front group to start a war i

Bernard Weiner: The Veep claims he's got immunity from any lawsuit--whaaaat?

[Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government & international relations at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly two decades, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@comcast.net.] In foreign policy, the CheneyBush Administration is criticized widely abroad for acting like a

Daniel Pipes: The Travails of Brooklyn's Arabic Academy

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] A question mark hangs over the opening of New York City's planned Arabic-language school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy.That the topic remains open is surprising. Other than objections from a few of us – the New York Sun's editorialists, its columnist

Frederick W. Kagan: We Can Win

[Mr. Kagan, a historian, is a resident scholar at AEI.] Iraq is the central front in the war against Al Qaeda. And we are beginning to win. These are not talking points. They are facts on the ground, as I saw during my recent trips there. Though you may be getting the opposite impression from news reports, the sectarian violence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had unleashed by destroying the Samarra Mosque in February 2006 has subsided. Measured weekly, sectarian killings are

Juan Cole: The origins of the Lebanon crisis

. Fath al-Islam is a splinter guerrilla group established last December that has links to the international Salafi Jihadi movement (which some call "al-Qaeda" as shorthand). Its leader has ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It is tiny, with at most 300 fighters, and not all of them may be Palestinian. It is opposed by all the major Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and the PLO. It is, according to CNN, extremely well armed. It appears to have an international network. One of the

Frederick W. Kagan: Don't abandon the Iraqis

From time to time, nations face fundamental tests of character. Forced to choose between painful but wise options, and irresponsible ones that offer only temporary relief from pain, a people must decide what price they are willing to pay to safeguard themselves and their children and to do the right thing. America has faced such tests before. Guided by Abraham Lincoln, we met our greatest challenge during the Civil War and overcame it, despite agonizing doubts about the possibility of success ev