Roundup: Historians' Take

W. Clark Gilpin: We should be wary when pols adopt religious myths

[W. Clark Gilpin is Margaret E. Burton Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.] The current issue of the New York Review of Books contains a probing article by the noted author and columnist on international relations, William Pfaff.  Entitled "Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America," Pfaff's essay excoriates the Bush administration for pursuing its

Michael Oen: The Sinai campaign of 1956 established that Israel was here to stay

[Mr. Oren is a senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a contributing editor of Azure and author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2007).] Fifty years ago, at dawn on Oct. 29, 1956, Israeli paratroopers under the command of Col. Ariel Sharon dropped into the Mitla Pass deep in the Sinai Peninsula, 25 miles from the Suez Canal. The action was the first phase in a plan secretly forged by representatives of France, Britain an

Mark Naison: On Articulate Blacks

[Mark Naison is Professor of AFrican American Studies and History, Fordham University.] To My Black Brothers and Sisters ( And Anyone Else Who Will Listen!): This whole controversy that Senator Joseph Biden set in motion by referring to Barack Obama as "articulate" has me a lot more amused than upset. Yes, we all know scores of whites who reveal their unconscious racism by referring to a talented black colleague, or public figure, as "

Stanley Kutler: All critics of Israel aren't anti-Semites

[Stanley I. Kutler has taught and lectured at Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities. He is the author of "Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes."] THE AMERICAN Jewish Committee has endorsed an article by Indiana University professor Alvin Rosenfeld linking "progressive" Jewish thought to a rise in anti-Semitism. The article pointedly castigates Jewish critics of Israel 's policies, and argues that such criticism questions the very right of Israel statehood. All this, Ro

Martin E. Marty: Why he doesn't wail on Bush in his weekly column

[The Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught chiefly in the Divinity School for 35 years and where the Martin Marty Center has since been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors.] Professor Hans Küng Tübingen, Germany Dear Friend: Instead of my usual Monday "op-ed" Sightings, I will write to you and publish this e-mail letter. First, let me congratulate you on the honor

Niall Ferguson & Moritz Schularick: The sum of China and America ... Chimerica

[Mr. Ferguson is the Ziegler professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Mr. Schularick is an economist at Amiya Capital, London.] ... The defining feature of the current world economy is not an excess of liquidity or a shortage of assets, but the gap between company profits and the level of real interest rates. This wedge between the return on capital and the cost of capital is in large measure attributable to the spectacular rise of what we call "Chimeric

Yossi Klein Halevi & Michael Oren: Israel's worst nightmare is Iran armed with nukes

[Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor to The New Republic and a senior fellow of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Michael B. Oren is a contributing editor to The New Republic and a senior fellow of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. He is the author most recently of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present. ] The first reports from military intelligence about an Iranian nuclear program reached the desk of Yitzhak Rabin shortly after he became pri

Ruth Rosen: Note to Progressives ... Challenge Market Fundamentalism

[Ruth Rosen is a historian and journalist who teaches public policy at UC Berkeley. She is a senior fellow at the Longview Institute.] Women have gained the potential of enormous power in DC with Nancy Pelosi elected as Speaker of the House. The Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues will grow to be perhaps the largest in Congress, but the question remains: how will these newly empowered women use their power? Among the issues on the wish list of newly elected women, a

Howard Zinn: Impeachment by the People

[Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. For information on how to get involved in the impeachment effort, go to www.afterdowningstreet.org.] ... The time is right, then, for a national campaign calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Representative John Conyers, who held extensive hearings and introduced an impeachment resolution when the Republicans controlled

Alan Brinkley: Bush on the Couch ... He Misunderstands History

[Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History, Columbia University.] Despite the tepid signs of conciliation in the State of the Union, what is striking about Bush today is how little impact his problems appear to have had on him. To all appearances, he seems still to believe that he is a great world leader engaged in the historic task of leading a reluctant nation into a necessary new relationship with the world. (“I must tell you,” he said in a recent press conference, “I’m sleepin

Chalmers Johnson: Empire v. Democracy

[Chalmers Johnson is a retired professor of Asian Studies at the University of California, San Diego. From 1968 until 1972 he served as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the final volume in his Blowback Trilogy, is just now being published. In 2006 he appeared in the prize-winning documentary film Why We Figh

Daniel Pipes: Radical Islam vs. Civilization

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.]Text of a talk presented by Daniel Pipes on January 20, 2007, in London in a debate with the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, as transcribed by the 910 Group with the help of others. The original posting of the video can be seen at

Russell Jacoby: Hats off to conservatives' literary skills — but it's easy to be entertaining when your ideas are simplistic and illogical

[Russell Jacoby is a professor in residence in the history department at the University of California at Los Angeles. He is author, most recently, of Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age (Columbia University Press, 2005).] Do conservatives write better than leftists? Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys (Threshold Editions), to be published this month, is a collection of essays by a dozen conservati

Stanley I. Kutler: James Webb ... Truly a "New" Democrat

It took Senator James Webb, a former Republican secretary of the Navy, Annapolis graduate, and Marine Vietnam veteran, and gun control opponent to make the most unabashed, unapologetic, and unqualified response to President Bush's ill-conceived policies--not only of the past month, but of the past five years. Thank you, Virginia, for giving us Senator Webb. The senator had eight minutes in the limelight to challenge Bush's version of the"State of the Union." After his November el

Donald Stoker: Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)

[Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program. His opinions are his own. He is the author or editor of a number of works, including the forthcoming From Mercenaries to Privatization: The Evolution of Military Advising, 1815-2007 (London: Routledge, 2007).] The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or success

Louis Fisher: Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War

Statement by Louis Fisher Specialist in Constitutional Law appearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War” January 30, 2007 Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to offer my views on the constitutional authority of Congress to restrict, redirect, or terminate military operations. In recent years, some commentators have argued that Congress cannot, in time of war, interfere wit

Robert F. Turner: Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War

[Professor Robert Turner is Associate Director, Center for National Security Law , University of Virginia.] Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. It is a great pleasure to appear before you once again this morning. The issue before us is one of great importance to the nation and to the principle of the rule of law. As this hearing will demonstrate, it is also an issue about which honest and able scholars can profoundly disagree. Introduction Because

Benny Morris: This Holocaust will be different

[The writer is a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University.] The second holocaust will not be like the first. The Nazis, of course, industrialized mass murder. But still, the perpetrators had one-on-one contact with the victims. They may have dehumanized them over months and years of appalling debasement and in their minds, before the actual killing. But, still, they were in eye and ear contact, sometimes in tactile contact, with their victims. The Ge

Jonathan Zimmerman: President Bush was unqualified to run the country in 2000, just as Obama is now

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University.] I went to college with Sen. Barack Obama. As best I can recall, I had one class with him. It was a sociology course, and he sat a few seats away from me. He was quiet, friendly and smart. Now, if you believe the hype, he's a few straw polls away from becoming our next president. I'd be inclined to vote for Obama too, because I share his politics. But there's just one little problem: He's not qual

David A. Bell: Was 9/11 really that bad?

[David A. Bell, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and a contributing editor for the New Republic, is the author of "The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It."] IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave.