Featured Articles — May 5, 2009

May 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama the Untested by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic
A look ahead to the crises—from Russian power plays to Israeli military strikes—that could really show us what the president is made of.

The Long Voyage Home By David Brooks, The New York Times
Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave. They like leaders — from Goldwater to Reagan to Bush to Palin — who play up their Western heritage. Republicans like the way Westerns seem to celebrate their core themes — freedom, individualism, opportunity and moral clarity.

Obama’s ‘apologies’ are a strength By Gideon Rachman, The Financial Times
“I will never apologise for the United States, ever. I don’t care what the facts are.” President George H.W. Bush’s statement in 1988 was more than just a “Bushism”, of the sort that his son later made famous. It was also a pithy summary of a whole school of thought in the US.

Under the Influence: Schooled in State-Building By Andrew Bast, World Politics Review
The top item at President Barack Obama’s two-day mini-summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari at the White House this week will be “cooperation.” The agenda is also likely to include a pile of other challenges now facing South Asia — like the 40 percent spike in civilian deaths in Afghanistan last year, the popular backlash in Pakistan against the United States’ use of drone missile attacks, and the floor-to-ceiling corruption that pervades President Karzai’s government.

The Battle for Control of Pakistan By Susanne Koelbl and Gabor Steingart, Der Speigel
The Taliban’s advances into the heartland of Pakistan have alarmed the West. How close are the extremists to acquiring nuclear warheads? The Americans have urged the Pakistanis to put aside their differences with India and pursue militant Islamists on their own soil.

Swine-Flu Hysteria By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal
In the matter of swine flu — and the single dumbest response to it yet — first prize was about to go to the government of Egypt, which last week ordered a cull of the country’s estimated 400,000 pigs, never mind that the disease, name notwithstanding, is mainly transmitted human-to-human.

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