Here is something I’ve learned you shouldn’t say to candidates for next year’s Republican presidential nomination: “So, I guess you represent the John McCain-Lindsey Graham foreign-policy wing in this race.” I made this observation the other day to Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, and he winced. It wasn’t a run of the mill wince; it was, as they say, an audible wince. McCain and Gra

My older brother, Bashir, 26, is one of the thousands of people who have been detained by Bashar Assad’s regime in recent weeks.At first, we didn’t know what had happened to him. He and two friends had been missing since they went to the northern city of Jisr al-Shoughur on June 10 to film secretly the protests and the army crackdown there. Then, last week, I was watching Syrian state television w

For two years, polls have shown that the American people have two strongly held beliefs. First, they think the president should do more to create jobs. Second, they believe federal spending should be cut, and the government should shrink. To the progressive economists who form the cadre of President Barack Obama’s advisers ― and indeed, to most mainstream economists ― these two views are mutually

There rarely are second acts, to borrow a phrase from F. Scott Fitzgerald, in American politics. Larry Summers, lauded as President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, made a comeback to government two and half years ago as President Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser with expectations he would become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Instead, he returned to Harvard University, his reput

Nearly every day for three years, Josue Melquisedec Diaz reported to work by going to a New Orleans street corner where contractors, subcontractors and people fixing up their places went to hire day laborers. It was there, one day in 2008, that a contractor picked him up and took him to Beaumont, Texas, just across the Louisiana line, to work on the cleanup, demolition and reconstruction projects

The surge in Afghanistan was supposed to change the incentives of the Taliban so that they would choose to join the government rather than fight it. That was how the Iraq surge of 2007 worked to end the civil war there, and that was the main objective in Afghanistan. But it didn’t succeed. The great bulk of the Taliban are still in fighting mode, and negotiations with the insurgents are nascent at

Watching Greece slide into chaos from 6,000 miles away is painful. Asia, after all, was the last region to experience what Europe may be about to endure. Asia’s implosion in 1997 toppled leaders, touched off riots, set back living standards a decade or more and tarnished the International Monetary Fund’s reputation. Expect similar developments as Europe’s grand monetary experiment cracks. Asia and

A hypothetical letter from the Western-educated daughter of China’s next paramount leader:To: Comrade Xi JinpingFrom: Your daughterRespected Father,As you prepare to assume the leadership role in China, I write to share with you thoughts on the global situation and China’s role that I have gained here in my studies at Harvard University.The financial tornado of 2008 and ensuing economic difficulti

How far student speech has come since Mary Beth and John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt wore black armbands to school in Des Moines to protest the Vietnam War and got suspended as though they were common hooligans.Now, online-savvy teens get in trouble for rudely mocking their elders on social networking sites, and the ensuing court battles rattle and redefine free-speech boundaries.In Tinker v.

Many Americans probably wonder why President Obama didn’t call for a bigger troop pullout from Afghanistan.Having recently returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think he could have made a stronger case for his decision to bring home only 10,000 troops by the end of this year. (The rest of the 33,000 “surge” troops he has deployed will return no later than September 2012, with a full transition