Think the United States is fairing badly in the Middle East? Convinced that our policy is chaotic, confused and contradictory, from North Africa to the Persian Gulf?Think again. It may not be politically correct to admit it, but when it comes to furthering America’s core national interests, Washington isn’t doing badly at all. And here’s why.Defining U.S. national interests is a critically important task, and not enough attention is paid to it. If you don’t know where you’re going, the old saw g

NEWPORT BEACH ― As the fifth anniversary of the disorderly collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers approaches, some analysts will revisit the causes of an historic global “sudden stop” that resulted in enormous economic and financial disruptions. Others will describe the consequences of an event that continues to produce considerable human suffering. And some will share personal experiences of a terrifying time for the global economy and for them personally (as policymakers, financial-ma

The good news this Labor Day: Jobs are returning. The bad news this Labor Day: Most of them pay lousy wages and provide low, if not nonexistent, benefits.The trend toward lousy wages began before the Great Recession. According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, weak wage growth between 2000 and 2007, combined with wage losses for most workers since then, means that the bottom 60 percent of working Americans are earning less now than 13 years ago.This is also part of the explanat

Fifty years ago, on a hot Wednesday afternoon in the nation’s capital, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln and told America about a dream he had.There is no way he could have imagined then that an African-American boy, who was only 2 years old at the time, would grow up to be president of the United States. And that on another Wednesday afternoon, exactly 50 years later, that black president would stand on the same steps of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver a speech in co

Steve Ballmer’s announcement last week of his retirement from Microsoft Corp. after 13 years at the helm leaves some puzzling questions for his successor ― about Microsoft’s epic decline, its uncertain future and the ultimate purpose of a public company. Resolving them may well prove impossible. And that’s OK. Under Ballmer, who succeeded Bill Gates as chief executive officer in 2000, Microsoft failed to anticipate or adequately respond to almost every technological innovation that came along, f

Sooner or later, the United States and its Western allies are going to have to go into Syria with force, like it or not. There’s little choice.I’m not talking about retaliation for the apparent chemical-weapons attacks that killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more. The Syrians have committed a grave international crime ― and crossed President Obama’s “red line” once again. Some sort of response is warranted, even if only to show that the United States means what it says, and hencefor

The administration of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has faced a problem, the settlement of which can never be forgotten in consolidating Xi’s power base. Of course, we are speaking of the case in which Bo Xilai, the former top official of the southwestern megacity of Chongqing and former member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, was charged with bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.In the public hearing of the case held in Shandong Province, Bo thoroughly dismissed al

The National Health Insurance Service is reportedly moving to file lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers to seek compensation for the expenses incurred by smoking. NHIS president Kim Jong-dae told a seminar Tuesday that the corporation has secured clinical data that proves the ill effects of smoking on people’s health. At the seminar, the corporation unveiled the findings of clinical research its team has conducted for the past 20 years. The team has kept track of some 1.3 million people who

The ongoing partisan standoff over the alleged meddling of the National Intelligence Service in the December presidential election is likely to continue into September, disrupting the imminent regular session of the National Assembly.Under the law, the Assembly is required to start its 100-day regular session on Sept. 1. But a parliamentary paralysis appears to be inevitable as the rival camps are unable to find common ground on handling the thorny issue.Political gridlock deepened after Preside

Medicare continues to exhibit remarkably slow growth: a modest 3 percent over the past year. That’s great news, but a debate is raging about whether this is caused by a weak economy (and therefore will reverse as the economy recovers) or other factors (and therefore may persist, drastically improving the budget outlook). Two new studies tilt toward the optimistic possibility. The first, a technical paper from the Congressional Budget Office, parsed the decline in cost growth per beneficiary from

WASHINGTON ― What does the world look like when people begin to doubt the credibility of American power? Unfortunately, we’re finding that out in Syria and other nations where leaders have concluded they can defy a war-weary America without paying a price. Using military power to maintain a nation’s credibility may sound like an antiquated idea, but it’s all too relevant in the real world we inhabit. It has become obvious in recent weeks that President Obama, whose restrained and realistic forei

The specter of economic doomsday makes war between China and the United States as unthinkable as fear of nuclear doomsday made Soviet-U.S. war. Or does it? In fact, Chinese and American military planners are thinking in exquisite detail, as they are expected to do, about how to win such a conflict. The problem is that the specific plans being concocted could make hostilities less unthinkable, and two great powers with every reason to avoid war could find themselves in one.Having been impotent ag

For those of us who believe the American public deserves and needs to know much more about what goes on in the rest of the world, the arrival of a television network determined to focus on hard news, to “make news the star,” to quote my old boss Ted Turner, should be cause for celebration. But when that network is Al Jazeera, we all need to take a few steps back and prepare before we start watching.The first fact to keep in mind when watching the just launched Al Jazeera America is that the new

LONDON ― The announcement, following the use of chemical weapons in Syria, of an emergency summit in Jordan this week of military leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar is a welcome development. Western policy is at a crossroads: commentary or action; shaping events or reacting to them.After the long and painful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, I understand every impulse to stay clear of the turmoil, to watch but not

Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg is thinking big about how to increase Internet access in the developing world. That’s an ambitious and laudable goal. Incidentally, it could also be very profitable for Zuckerberg’s company. This week, Facebook and a few other companies announced a partnership, Internet.org, with plans to expand access “to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected.” They want to make it cheaper to get online, improve the efficiency of data usage and encourage bus

CLAREMONT, California ― As show trials go, the drama featuring Bo Xilai, the once-swaggering, media-savvy former Chinese Communist Party chief of Chongqing, veered anomalously into improvisation. Before the proceedings began, the conventional wisdom was that Bo’s trial had been carefully scripted and rehearsed to portray a forlorn and penitent sinner confessing his crimes and apologizing to the party.But the historic five-day trial dispelled any notion that Bo would go quietly to his cell in Bei

EASTHAM, Massachusetts ― Americans are a bunch of lazy layabouts who don’t want to work and would rather live off the taxes generated by the toil of their countrymen. I hear some version of this rant repeatedly from people who believe that the American work ethic disappeared at some point in the past generation.Here on gorgeous Cape Cod, where I vacation, I’ve been thinking about the state of the American work and workers. So let’s clear up a few matters.First, American worker productivity is hi

The International Olympic Committee is letting Russia off far too easy. Russia has argued nonsensically that its new anti-gay law is in keeping with the Olympic Charter’s protections against discrimination, and the IOC simply has accepted it. The law, approved by the Russian parliament in June, prohibits “propaganda” in support of “nontraditional” sexual relationships. This means virtually any expression of homosexual love, or approval of or information about homosexuality. Russians face fines;

It’s time to set our clocks back in Asia. Not to 1997, as many are recommending, but to 1994. Memories of the former year remain raw. Currencies had gone into free fall and current-account deficits exploded. Central bankers and International Monetary Fund officials scurried to contain the chaos. It’s true that another 1997-like crisis is highly unlikely. Today, exchange rates are more flexible, foreign-currency debt is lower, banks are healthier, countries are sitting on trillions of dollars of

Recently, I came across an interesting article in Time magazine titled “The Me Me Me Generation.” The article points out that millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, often have symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. For example, young people frequently upload pictures of themselves onto social media sites for their “followers” to praise. In addition, these young people are so confident in themselves that they believe they are entitled to virtually everything. The Time article high