Contentions

[Annie]

A very good read. On both the following, there are links and discussion of issues. If you like sites like City or Foreign Affairs, you'll enjoy this. Two links:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/zzbernstein/122

M. Chirac’s Retractions
Davi Bernstein - 2.4.2007 - 4:21PM

The “united” Western position on Iran unraveled somewhat last week when French President Jacques Chirac told reporters that if Iran were to get one nuclear bomb and “maybe a second one a little later, well, that’s not very dangerous.” Should the Iranians try to use them, he continued, “Tehran will be razed.”

The uproar was dismissed by the Élysée Palace as a “shameful campaign” by American news outlets intent on “using any excuse to engage in France-bashing”—an absurd accusation given a Le Monde editorial titled “a radical turning” and accusing Chirac of destroying French credibility. So reporters were summoned for a “retraction” interview the next day—but Chirac’s only retraction was to regret any insult he might have given Iran. Three times he called the Islamic republic “a great country.” As for his comment that “Tehran will be razed” should it launch a nuclear weapon: “I retract it, of course.” So long, nuclear deterrence: the “essential foundation”—to quote Chirac in 2001—at the “heart of our country’s security.”...

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/zzzmunson/121

Weekend Reading
Sam Munson - 2.2.2007 - 3:10PM

We’re sorry to see the lively debate on Iraq between Max Boot and Victor Davis Hanson end today. You can follow the debate’s fascinating progress below:

Boot I • Hanson I • Boot II • Hanson II • Boot III • Hanson III • Boot IV • Hanson IV

COMMENTARY has been a major voice in the American debate over foreign policy for more than sixty years. The questions Max and Victor raise about Iraq are contemporary echoes of those that have engaged thinkers in this realm since the end of World War II. Here are a few classic examinations of America’s strategic and political role in the world from our archives to feed your intellectual appetite till Monday. Enjoy.

World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win
Norman Podhoretz

The Struggle for Mastery in Asia
Aaron L. Friedberg

How to Cope with the Soviet Threat
Richard Pipes

Was Woodrow Wilson Right?
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Vietnam: New Light on the Question of American Guilt
Guenter Lewy

 

[Annie]

I got around to reading the Commentary article on Wilson by Moynihan. Remember when we had serious people in the Senate?

Much of what he was writing about Wilsonian thinking brought forth a pretty clear picture of the world we are now living in, nearly 75 years later.