War in Context

Fighting words
By George Packer, The New Yorker, November 26, 2007
As the tide goes out on President Bush’s foreign policy, the mass of flotsam left behind includes a Republican Party that no longer knows how to be reasonable. Whenever its leading Presidential candidates appear before partisan audiences, they try to outdo one another in pledging loyalty […]

Bush strategist looks back in sadness
By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, November 14, 2007
Matthew Dowd knows sorrow and loss. He has been divorced twice. A daughter died two months after she was born. And then there is the added heartbreak — a word he uses — of his split with President Bush.
Dowd, 46, is […]

Division of the U.S. didn’t occur overnight
By Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, November 13, 2007
During President George W. Bush’s first term, one of his senior political advisers summed up the prevailing philosophy at the White House like this: “This is not designed to be a 55 percent presidency,” he said. “This is designed to be […]

The evangelical crackup
By David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, October 28, 2007
Just three years ago, the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement could almost see the Promised Land. White evangelical Protestants looked like perhaps the most potent voting bloc in America. They turned out for President George W. Bush in record numbers, supporting him […]

How the Christian right could defeat Rudy — and make Hillary president
By Alex Koppelman, Salon, October 19, 2007
One of Rudy Giuliani’s chief attractions to Republican primary voters is supposed to be electability. “We’re going to need the strongest possible Republican who can win in every state,” the former New York City mayor said during an […]

Putin: no proof Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons
By Mark Tran, The Guardian, October 10, 2007
There is no proof Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said today.
But he said Tehran should make its atomic activity “as transparent as possible”.
“We do not have data that says Iran is trying […]

The Republican collapse
By David Brooks, New York Times, October 5, 2007
Modern conservatism begins with Edmund Burke. What Burke articulated was not an ideology or a creed, but a disposition, a reverence for tradition, a suspicion of radical change.
When conservatism came to America, it became creedal. Free market conservatives built a creed around freedom and capitalism. […]

Closing Guantanamo lockup looks increasingly unlikely
By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2007
A lightning rod for international criticism, the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not long ago appeared headed for closure. President Bush and his top advisors said they wanted to shutter the controversial lockup.
But the latest attempt to shut it […]

‘There is always something to be afraid of, because the threat is an ongoing threat’
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, August 11, 2007
“Vague Threat Prompts Steps by the Police,” says the small headline in the New York Times‘ NY/Region section. The mayor’s office issues a statement saying that the city’s threat level has not changed. […]