Benazir Bhutto

Two months before she braved returning to her homeland and was murdered there, I had the opportunity to hear Benazir Bhutto address a group at the Council on Foreign Relations. Twice a former Prime Minister of Pakistan, she struck me not so much as a politician but as a leader with a clear, bold message. No one listening could misunderstand her vision for a democratic Pakistan or her keen grasp both of the military dictatorship and of the religious extremists who stood in the way of implementing democracy.

Obama & McCain

The results of the November 4, 2008 U.S. presidential election will affect a globalised planet like never before. This article looks past the candidates sound-bites to imagine how each one, and his phalanx of advisors, might engage the wider world. The conclusions may surprise you.

A slightly shorter version of this article was first published in Third Way, September 2008.

Ethical Realism (review)

Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World, Anatol Lieven & John Hulsman
(Pantheon Books/Random House, 200pp).

This review originally appeared in slightly shorter form in The Christian Century, March 20, 2007.