- War of Ideas
HEADNOTE Combating Militant Islamist Idealogy For the first time since the end of the Gold War, the United States finds itself in an intense competition for hearts and minds. This time, it is competing against radical Islamic fundamentalists for the support of the Muslim world. This is a struggle against ......
- The Iran puzzle: the Islamic Republic is the most troublesome Mideast state, but has signaled its desire to deal with us. How should America respond to Iran?
FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES, THE ENMITY BETWEEN THE United States and Iran has been an established fact of Middle East politics. At various times, both countries have attempted to transcend their animosity and arrive at mutually acceptable compacts. However, there was never any urgency in either Washington or Tehran for ......
- Rooms and borders: The West's variable experience with Islam
IT TAKES TWO to make a border, even a bloody one. Samuel Huntington's trope about Islam's sanguinary cyclical history of confrontation and expansion was adduced when hot embers still glowed in the residue of the Cold War-and when the idea of "the West" still rang true as intellectual currency. Today, ......
- Pragmatic theocracy: A contradiction in terms?
FOR TWO DECADES now, the Islamic Republic of Iran has confounded the American foreign policy community, whose members have oscillated wildly between urgent appeals to normalize relations with Tehran and equally determined bids to contain its influence. In the latest swing of the pendulum, a chorus of voices-including those of ......
- Music To My Ears: The Enduring Dreams Of Secular Xmas Songs
The religious devotion behind Christmas music is an ancient facet of Western culture, but the song-minded impulse to celebrate the holiday's secular virtue is a modern development, proving our enduring ability to remake our culture to fit our contemporary ......
- Neo-Conspiracy Theories
Neo-Conspiracy Theories James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (New York: Penguin, 2004), 426 pp., $16. Patrick Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subvened the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004), 272 pp., $24.95. Stefan ......
- Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran
Hamid Rahimian, a former soldier in the Iran-Iraq war, oversees the martyrs' section at Iran's largest cemetery. He laments that he did not die alongside his comrades during the war and criticizes the younger generation for losing the principles of the revolution. But after cursing the United States for a ......