Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University today brought out the best and worst in modern American culture. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger showed courage in inviting such a polarizing and controversial figure to speak. There were calls to cancel the Iranian president’s invitation and now some politicians want to cut funding to Columbia [...]

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President Bush has again displayed the nuance and diplomatic skills of a chainsaw. His flippant approach to Russian concerns about the deployment of an American anti-ballistic missile system in former East Bloc countries only serves to make it even more difficult to work with the Russians in the future. To underscore that, Russia has just [...]

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Our political leadership, congressional and presidential, has turned the most urgent and critical issue facing our nation into a an exercise in sound bite governance and diplomacy. “Cut and run” and “stay the course” compete with “bring the troops home” and “support our troops” as empty slogans masquerading as policy. The nation deserves a well [...]

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There is a silver lining in the Iraq war cloud. After spending almost $400 million thus far at a cost of nearly 3500 of U.S. military lives with no end in sight after four and a half years, it’s easy to name the numerous ways that the war has been bad for America. But what about the ways it’s been good for the country?

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