AMMAN, Jordan ― Iraq appears to be slipping back into civil war, and Sheik Zaydan Aljabiri, one of the political leaders of the Sunni insurgent group known as the Tribal Revolutionaries, seems confident that his side is winning.“We are three kilometers from Baghdad airport! We are 20 kilometers from the Green Zone!” Zaydan proclaims in an interview here. Dressed in a princely gold robe and red kaffiyeh, he conveys the tribal authority of one of the leading sheiks of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s

Last week U.S. President Barack Obama visited Tokyo and Seoul, the first two legs of his ongoing tour of Asia, which is intended to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the region. His itinerary also includes Malaysia and the Philippines. In Tokyo, Obama gave a big boost to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by unequivocally pledging to protect the Senkaku islands against China. At a joint news conference after the summit, Obama said, “Let me reiterate that our treaty commitment to Japan’s securi

NEW DELHI ― The deteriorating situation in Ukraine and rising tensions between Russia and the United States threaten to bury U.S. President Barack Obama’s floundering “pivot” toward Asia ― the world’s most vibrant (but also possibly its most combustible) continent. Obama’s forthcoming tour of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines will do little to rescue the pivot or put his regional foreign policy on a sound footing. In fact, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is just the latest reason

We’re in a new Gilded Age of wealth and power similar to the first Gilded Age, when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. Those laws should prevent or bust up concentrations of economic power that not only harm consumers but also undermine our democracy ― such as Comcast’s pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable.In 1890, when Republican Sen. John Sherman of Ohio urged his congressional colleagues to act against the centralized industrial powers that threatened America, he didn’t distinguish

Last week, I spent two evenings with Naseeruddin Shah, India’s most refined actor.With Singapore businessman George Abraham on guitar, and joined by our wives, we drank, sang Bob Dylan songs and talked about India’s changing social fabric, how the country was morphing in not-always pleasant ways and of our sons who were House mates at a boarding school in Dehradun, northern India.The following evening, we watched as Naseer, directed by his wife and actress Ratna Pathak Shah, held a sellout crowd

There are few happier events than becoming a grandmother, and almost none that says quite so loudly “over the hill.”Even before the announcement that Chelsea Clinton was pregnant, Republicans were in love with the notion of Hillary Clinton being too old to be president ― she would take office at age 69. Karl Rove said his party should make the argument that “we’re at the end of her generation.” On Friday, the Drudge Report put up the banner headline “Grandma Hillary.” This followed a spate of ar

NEW YORK ― The dangers of the crisis in Ukraine cannot be exaggerated. Russian President Vladimir Putin is overtly and covertly inciting separatism in eastern Ukraine, and has declared Russia’s unilateral right to intervene there, in complete contravention of international law. Russia’s provocative policies are putting it on a collision course with the West. Putin explained his point of view in a recent television appearance: Russia’s current international borders are provisional, determined by