In a rapidly changing Islamic world, the Obama administration is weighing how best to talk with adversaries such as the Taliban and, perhaps, Hezbollah. One model for the administration, as it thinks about engagement of enemies, is the British process of dialogue during the 1990s with Sinn Fein, the legal political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army. That outreach led to breakthrough pe...

BANGKOK ― After three consecutive years of deadly street protests, Thailand has arrived at the point where it will need to hold new elections, as the current term of its national assembly expires this December. Indeed, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has indicated that he will call for the dissolution of the lower house by the first week of May. This follows a parliamentary no-confidence motion,...

I was at an IMF conference on capital flows in Bali when the Japanese earthquake and tsunami occurred. As the tragedy unfolded over the weekend, it became clear that the crisis was complicated by nuclear considerations. All of our sympathies and condolences go with our Japanese friends as they go through this terrible natural disaster, possibly larger than the Kobe earthquake. When the Year of t...

Al-Qaida’s leaders languishing in their lairs are probably taking Valium right now ― if not something stronger. Watching the revolutions spreading across the Middle East, they look like utter fools. The most obvious point of ridicule is Egypt, where thousands of youths accomplished in a few weeks a feat that Al-Qaida had been pursuing for 20 years: throwing Hosni Mubarak out of office. Worse, h...

WASHINGTON ― The Obama administration and its support for democratic change in the Middle East has been on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other traditional monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The crunch finally came this week with a sharp break over how to deal with protest in Bahrain. The stakes in this latest crisis are high, even by Middle East standards, for i...