Roundup: Historians' Take

Andrew Meyer: Stop Chasing Victory; Start Making Sense in Iraq

[After living in mainland China and Taiwan for four years and in Japan for one year Andrew Meyer returned to the U.S. and earned a doctoral degree in Chinese history, which he teaches at the City University of New York.] The time for US leaders and citizens to cease imagining the Iraq crisis in terms of "winning" and "losing" has long past. The US faces no tangible enemy that it may defeat in Iraq. Conversely, virtually any potential "victory" for US foes in

Donald Ritchie: The Media and Congressional Investigations

[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.] Congressional committees are currently investigating the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, and are preparing to launch a host of other inquiries into the Bush administration. The question inevitably arises whether or no

Jonathan Zimmerman: One president's struggle to focus after wife fell ill

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University.] So let's suppose John Edwards becomes our next president. If his wife becomes seriously ill, will he be able to concentrate on his White House duties? That's what Katie Couric asked Edwards on 60 Minutes, after Elizabeth Edwards announced that her breast cancer had returned. John Edwards never wavered in his answer: Yes. "I care about her situation. I love her," John Edwards said, as Elizabeth looked on."B

Tom Engelhardt: The Theater of the Imperially Absurd

Do you remember, in 2001-2002, when top Bush administration officials, the neocons and their supporters, and allied pundits used to talk about an "arc of instability" that coincided with the energy heartlands of the planet? It was imagined to extend from North Africa through the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, right up to the Chinese border. Back then, they imagined that it was the destiny of "the last superpower" to put its ultimate mark (its "footpri

Juan Cole: How to get out of Iraq

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com/.] Both houses of Congress have now backed a timeline for withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq in 2008, which George W. Bush has vowed to veto. He gives two major rationales for rejecting w

Christopher Phelps: The New SDS

[Christopher Phelps, who teaches history at Ohio State University, Mansfield, is the author of Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist (University of Michigan).] Twenty-year-old Will Klatt, wearing a green knit hat, baggy jeans and black jacket pulled over a hoodie, stands before a Civil War monument at the center of Ohio University's main campus in Athens. Although a February snow is falling steadily, more than a hundred students have turned out for this rally called by a new organiza

Charles J. Ogletree Jr. and Johanna Wald: The lessons of Dred Scott

[Charles J. Ogletree Jr. is executive director and Johanna Wald is director of strategic planning at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at Harvard Law School. ] ONE HUNDRED fifty years ago -- on March 6, 1857 -- the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that haunts us today. In Dred Scott v. Sandford the court found all "negroes," even free ones, exempt from the rights, privileges, and immunities afforded to US citizens by the Constitution. Chief Justice Roger Taney

Frederick W. Kagan: Iraqi Security Forces: Status and Prospects (congressional testimony)

The change in American strategy in Iraq announced by President Bush on January 10, 2007 requires a fundamental re-evaluation of every aspect of America’s approach to the war. This requirement is nowhere greater than in our view of the Iraqi Security Forces and our evaluation of their progress. For three years, America’s civilian and military leaders have seen and presented developing the ISF as a means to an end—as a way to hasten the reduction in and ultimate departure of American troops from I

Neve Gordon: Behind the Riyadh Summit

[Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel and can be reached at: nevegordon@gmail.com. ] Beer-Sheeva, Israel: In the wake of the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, eight Arab heads of state met in Khartoum, Sudan, to decide how to react to the humiliating defeat. The leaders’ message was straightforward: There would be no peace with Israel, no recognition of and no negotiations with the Jewish state. Following the summit, most Arab

Steven Plaut: Will America’s Largest Catholic University Give Tenure to a Fan of the Hezbollah?

[Steven Plaut is a professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa and is a columnist for the Jewish Press. A collection of his commentaries on the current events in Israel can be found on his"blog" at www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.] The timing could not have been better. Just as the Jewish holiday of liberation, Passover, was about to begin, the news was spreading throughout the blogosphere that one of America's most openly anti-Semitic and anti

Eric Alterman: The Bell Curveball (About Charles Murray)

Perhaps the most successful publishing foray into the world of ideas by a combination of right-wing funders and their compatriot intellectuals is the amazing public relations achievement undertaken on behalf of the work of the formerly obscure Charles Murray. How many 800-plus-page nonfiction books featuring over a hundred pages of graphs and source materials have managed to sell upwards of 300,000 copies in hardcover in recent years? How many have inspired Vanity Fair-type celebrity coverage in

Eric Rauchway: The GOP has spent more than a century demonizing Democrats

[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. ] Last month National Public Radio listeners said they were shocked when former House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay explained why he wouldn't talk to Democratic lobbyists: "Why would I meet with an enemy?" But in saying that anybody &quo

Niall Ferguson: Iran targeted the Security Council's weakest link: us

[Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University] Let that be a lesson. Even before Britain's politicians and churchmen had finished saying sorry for slavery last Sunday, 15 Britons found themselves temporarily enslaved by the Iranian government. When will our masters ever learn that, in international relations, nice guys finish last? This is indeed what comes of being too nice. A month before expressing his "deep sorrow and regret for

Stanley I. Kutler: The 'executive privilege' dodge

[Stanley I. Kutler is author of "Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes."] THE ERUPTION of a White House scandal inevitably brings in its wake the old chestnut of "executive privilege." Later 20th-century presidents increasingly found revelations of the privilege in the crevices of the Constitution, there to be discovered and re discovered by legions of White House and Justice Department lawyers. It is no great surprise that such words are nowhere to be

Richard Gott: Argentina's claim on the Falklands is still a good one

Richard Gott's latest book is Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press) Nearly 40 years ago, in November 1968, I travelled to the Falklands with a group of diplomats in what was Britain's first and last attempt to get shot of the islands. Lord Chalfont, then a minister at the Foreign Office, was the leader of this expedition. He had the unenviable task of trying to persuade the 2,000 islanders that the British empire might not last for ever - and that they should start to en

Arthur Herman: How to Win in Iraq—and How to Lose

[Arthur Herman, who has taught history at George Mason University and Georgetown University, is the author of The Idea of Decline in Western History and To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, among other books. His essay, “Getting Serious About Iran: A Military Option,” appeared in the November 2006 COMMENTARY.] ... In fact, the historical record is clear. The roots of failure in fighting insurgencies like the one in Iraq are not military. To the contrary,

Juan Cole: McCain Checks into Cloud Cuckooland

Senator John McCain has contracted Rumsfeld's Disease. This malady consists of a combination of bad temper, misuse of language to obfuscate reality, and a Panglossian optimism in the face of stubborn, sanguinary facts on the ground.McCain, for instance, hailed that deployment of Iraqi brigades"at or above 75% of their programmed strength"! Put another way, a quarter of the Iraqi troops ordered to Baghdad technica

Lorne Brown: Labour historian calls on Canada's progressive political parties to co-operate to defeat Stephen Harper's government

Selective co-operation among parties in several dozen constituencies could deny Stephen Harper control of the country in the next election. Much of what I am about to say would be unnecessary if Canada had a system of proportional representation like most countries claiming to be democracies. A proportional representation system would ensure that the percentage of seats allocated to each party in Parliament actually reflects the percentage of Canadians who voted for that party. Cana

George Lardner, Jr: What would a pardon for Libby mean?

... If Mr. Libby were to accept a traditional presidential pardon — a “full and unconditional” grant of clemency — he would be admitting that he was guilty of the crimes of which he was convicted: obstructing justice, perjury and lying to the F.B.I. Perhaps it shouldn’t be that way, but it is — no ifs, ands or b

Frederick Kagan & William Kristol: Wrong on Timetables

[Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at AEI. William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard.] Let's give congressional Democrats the benefit of the doubt: Assume some of them earnestly think they're doing the right thing to insist on adding to the supplemental appropriation for the Iraq war benchmarks and timetables for withdrawal. Still, their own arguments--taken at face value--don't hold up. Democrats in Congress have made three superficially plausible cla