WASHINGTON ― Hisham Melhem, a prominent Lebanese journalist, recalls an emotional visit to the Great Mosque of Cordoba in southern Spain last May. With tears in his eyes, he found himself wondering how the Arab Muslim genius of a thousand years ago had veered in modern times toward such chaos and repression. Melhem later wrote a column for the Beirut daily An Nahar describing his visit to the Andalusia region, “roaming as if ... in a dream,” touching the pillars of the mosque in Cordoba and othe

LONDON ― The events that led Egypt’s military to remove President Mohammed Morsi confronted the army with a simple choice: intervention or chaos. Seventeen million people in the street is not the same thing as an election. But it is an awesome manifestation of people power.Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood was unable to shift from being an opposition movement to being a governing party. Of course, governments govern badly or well or averagely. But this is different. Egypt’s economy is tanking. Ordinary

The 19 firefighters who died battling a huge wildfire near Prescott, Ariz., presumably were motivated by something other than rational self-interest. Like the first responders to 9/11 and other emergencies, and members of the armed forces, those firefighters put themselves in harm’s way (or chose a job that did so) because they wanted to serve.Economics, and much of public policy and political strategy, assume that people are motivated by self-interest, that the definition of acting rationally i

WASHINGTON ― The White House rationalized last week’s military coup in Egypt as providing the opportunity for a “do-over,” and that’s a comforting idea in more ways than one. But political life doesn’t come with an eraser to neatly remove mistakes and start over ― especially in the explosive Middle East. Egypt did need a new start. President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government had bungled so badly that Egypt was in the equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as I described it a mon

Asia’s longest-serving prime minister Hun Sen is seeking to build a political dynasty, analysts say, with both his son and son-in-law running in Cambodia’s upcoming general elections on July 28. At the same time, at least five other senior members of his ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) also have their sons contesting the election.The CPP won 90 of 123 National Assembly seats in the last election in 2008. This time, while the party is certain of winning, it is also fearful of surprises and

BEIJING ― After a spring of heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula, a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent weeks has brought some hope of a meeting of the minds, at least between China, South Korea, and the United States. But the emergence of a viable consensus on how to minimize the security risks emanating from North Korea’s mercurial leadership remains to be found.After a reportedly tough meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice Marshall Choe Ryong-hae, one of the four mem