Although it is still too early to speak of an “Obama Doctrine,” four trends, already apparent, will define the Obama administration’s approach to foreign affairs in the years ahead. They are: Cosmopolitanism, Soft Power, Appeasement and Global Meliorism. Cosmopolitanism: In…
I had been feeling unusually anxious and depressed all week, so it was with a real sense of relief that I entered my psychiatrist’s office and stretched out on his worn and familiar couch. “I’ve having the same nightmare all…
President Obama believes that his decision to shake hands with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at a summit of Latin leaders in Trinidad was the right thing to do. He dismisses critics who accuse him of sending the wrong signals, of…
The notice from Uncle Sam arrived the other day: “Welcome to the Federal Employees Retirement System. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management thanks you for your years of public service and the contributions you have made to America.…We are here…
It must have been around 3 a.m. the other night when I woke up with a severe case of heartburn. Staggering to the bathroom in search of some Tums, I noticed that the light was on in my teen-aged son’s…
The other day I was fixing breakfast as a treat for my wife — it was her birthday — when somehow the kitchen towel I was using to wipe some spillage caught fire. Holding on to the edge of the…
On January 25, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi rocked viewers of Al-Nas TV with a mind-boggling revelation. Here, courtesy of MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), are some highlights from his broadcast: Today, I would like to talk to you about…
In the early 1980s, the Strasbourg-based European Parliament held a conference on the “Right to Development,” and I was the Reagan Administration’s representative. Peter Berger, our regular delegate to these meetings, couldn’t attend because, if memory serves, he was attending…
I met Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister-designate, back when we were both graduate students (he at M.I.T., I at Tufts) in the mid-1970s. He struck me as a very smart fellow — though a bit of an extremist. I was…
This review appeared in the June 2006 issue of The American Spectator. To subscribe, click here. Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis With a Man Who Led the Mossad by Efraim Halevy (St. Martin’s Press, 292 pages,…