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The conventional wisdom today is that a small group of neoconservatives seized the occasion of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 to steer the nation into a war that would never have been fought otherwise. There is another and arguably simpler interpretation: that after September 11, 2001, American fears were elevated and their tolerance for potential threats lowered.
The issue of race is the longest-lasting cleavage in American politics. It is also perhaps the least understood. The open exploitation of racist sentiment by vote-hungry politicians was for centuries a durable American tradition. More recently, race has assumed a subtle, often unspoken form during campaign season, as Republicans have sought white votes by slyly associating their Democratic opponents with controversial black figures like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, or with topics--welfare, crime, federal funding for "midnight basketball"--that many voters identify with African Americans.
Washington insiders are calling for the establishment of a League of Democracies to tackle the world's problems. But the last thing people in other countries are looking for from the next administration is a high-profile initiative tying democracy promotion to the global U.S. security agenda.
My esteemed colleague Noam Scheiber has suggested that Barack Obama’s results in the Philadelphia suburbs did not possess the significance I attributed to them. Clinton’s advantage there, he suggests, didn’t show that she was cutting into Obama’s prior advantage among affluent, educated voters--voters that have made up much of his white support.
The Democratic primary is over. Hillary Clinton might still run in West Virginia and Kentucky, which she'll win handily, but by failing to win Indiana decisively and by losing North Carolina decisively, she lost the argument for her own candidacy. She can't surpass Barack Obama's delegate or popular vote count. The question is no longer who will be the Democratic nominee, but whether Obama can defeat Republican John McCain in November. And the answer to that is still unclear.
Tuesday's results replicated much of the Democratic race during the last two months. Hillary Clinton once more showed her strength and Barack Obama's weakness among white working class voters in Midwestern swing states, while Obama proved his hold on young and college-educated voters in states where a new post-industrial economy has developed, and where college-educated voters make up about half of the Democratic electorate.
To ensure world stability, a private sector–dominated superclass driving globalization needs reining in.
Of the world's elites, none has flown higher than those who have led the financial community. The re-engineering of international finance has been one of the transformational trends of our times - in just a quarter-century, capital flows became massive, instantaneous and controlled by a new breed of traders representing a handful of major financial institutions from a few countries. Their rewards have transcended any in history as shown by an estimate by Alpha Magazine that the top hedge fund manager last year made $3bn.
Russia is asserting its petro power, Chinese nationalism grows in response to criticism on Tibet, the dictators of Burma resist international aid, the crisis in Darfur is still raging, Iran continues to pursue a nuclear regime, and Robert Mugabe still clings violently to power in Zimbabwe. The world needs a league or concert of democratic nations.
The vision is grand, the reality less so. Russia's foreign policy has been merely assertive and reactive up till now. Will the new President manage something more constructive?
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