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Second Chance

The Iraq war has America’s foreign policy mavens waxing nostalgic. Partisans of the elder George Bush long for the days when realism and caution reigned in the White House. Bill Clinton’s fans fondly recall an era when presidential trips overseas drew admiring crowds rather than angry protesters. U.S. foreign policy, it would seem, should go forward by going backward.

Zbigniew Brzezinski will have none of that. In his engaging and briskly argued new book, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser sees little worth emulating in the past 15 years of U.S. foreign policy. He asks how Washington has led since becoming the world’s first truly global leader after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His answer? “In a word, badly.”

To make that case, Brzezinski grades the performance of presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush — or, to use the ungainly terms he prefers, Global Leaders I, II and III. Second Chance even comes complete with a full-blown report card. (You can guess which president gets an F.) Brzezinski’s unsparing assessments will warm the heart of anyone worried about grade inflation. …

What Second Chance does offer is a wise insight that should guide any effort to fashion a strategy to restore American leadership. We are in the midst of what Brzezinski rightly calls a “global political awakening.” Technology has made global “have-nots” painfully conscious of their relative deprivation. It has also given them the tools to punish those they see as blocking their aspirations. If the United States is to avoid becoming the target of their resentment, its foreign policy must be seen as serving their interests as well as its own. That means exercising self-restraint rather than pressing every advantage that comes to a superpower; it means listening to others and not just working to preserve our own peace and prosperity but helping others to build their own. The Global Leader IV who can find a way to translate these precepts into practical policies should be able to impress even the redoubtable Prof. Brzezinski.

– Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Target Iran

As a U.S. Marine officer in the Gulf War, Ritter served as a ballistic missile advisor to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and then became a high-up UN weapons inspector in Iraq until 1998. Now he is a vociferous, controversial critic of the Bush II administration and the Iraq War.

In his latest expose, Ritter trains his inspector’s eyes on Iran, meticulously analyzing the rhetoric about Tehran beginning with the first Bush presidency when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, then skeptically parsing the protracted, politically tangled wrangling over Iran’s nuclear program, and vehemently objecting to what he sees as excessive American alignment with Israel. The most interesting figure to emerge from Ritter’s flinty yet invaluable inquiry is John Bolton, current U.S. ambassador to the UN and a neo-con instrumental in pushing for regime changes in the Middle East “at any cost.” In closing, Ritter offers shrewd observations about why things have cooled off regarding Iran as the midterm elections loom and cautions that war with Iran would be catastrophic and must be averted. Donna Seaman

– Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved. This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Faith and Politics

Danforth, a Missouri Republican as well as a lawyer and Episcopal minister, tended to avoid nasty partisan politics during his three terms in the U.S. Senate (with the notable exception of his defense of his protégé Clarence Thomas during U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings). After voluntarily retiring from the Senate in 1995, Danforth accepted appointments by White House Republicans, including ambassador to the United Nations and envoy for peace in Sudan. But the partisanship of President George W. Bush, a variety of other Republicans and quite a few Democrats has now led Danforth to urge political rivals to pull together to strengthen the United States, so the nation can in turn promote world peace.

Danforth oozes sincerity and good sense as he excoriates “Christian conservatives” (naming James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, among others) for corrupting religious doctrine on reproduction and marriage and inappropriately inserting it in government. Conceding that he’s an imperfect human being who sometimes failed as a student, husband, father, lawyer, minister and senator, Danforth comes across as a welcome paragon of virtue. (Sept.)

– Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mission al Jazeera

Rushing, a Texas native and former Marine, is a correspondent for Al Jazeera International, and he is based in Washington, D.C. His purpose here is twofold. He not only wants to dispel many of the myths and prejudices accepted by Americans about the Arab world but also hopes to persuade Americans that they can more effectively convey positive aspects of American culture and American government policies by interacting with molders of Arab opinion such as Al Jazeera.

He spent 14 years as a Marine Corps media liaison officer, and he relays the now-familiar biases and misconceptions of Americans about Arabs. What is more interesting and informative are his descriptions of how the Arab world perceives American actions. Although he acknowledges that these perceptions are often distorted, Rushing asserts that American officials aggravate the problem by refusing to engage with Al Jazeera. Unfortunately, Rushing discounts one of the reasons for that refusal, which is Al Jazeera’s highly charged, biased reporting. Still, this work is a useful, informative effort to offer a different perspective on the cultural divide between Americans and Arabs. Jay Freeman
– Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

[Hmm, don't have a fifth as most are not that interesting to me]