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February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
January 6, 2012
January 5, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Taliban talks: In administration's push to negotiate with terrorists, was a key hurdle overlooked?
Pete Spotts: Time cloaking: How scientists opened a hidden gap in time
Karen Kaplan: Teens aren't too old to boost their IQ, study finds
January 4, 2012
Scott Baldauf: Islamist terror group giving Christians living in north Nigeria days to flee
Howard LaFranchi : An accelerating covert war with Iran: Could it spiral into military action?
January 3, 2012
Tom A. Peter: Release several Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay; give them headquarters as confidence-building measure?
Elaine Woo: Thomas T. Johnson, L.A. judge who ruled that Holocaust was a fact, dies at 88
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Jewish World Review
January 2, 2008
/ 24 Teves, 5768
The world in which we live
By
Paul Greenberg
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
This is the nature of the world in which we live. The phrase has been echoing in my mind since news came of Benazir Bhutto's assassination news that shocked but did not surprise. It wasn't just that the news might have been expected, it was expected. All understood the danger. It was often cited. It just wasn't dealt with. The world just hoped for the best, and did not prepare for the worst. All acted as if nothing could be done, and sure enough nothing was.
This is the nature of the world in which we live: A country like Pakistan, which was once of little strategic consequence in the Great Game of Nations, has become a nuclear power an increasingly unstable nuclear power. All recognize the gathering danger. It is regularly cited. But all act as if nothing can be done except hope for the best, and the worst awaits. As the fate of Benazir Bhutto so poignantly demonstrates.
This is the nature of the nuclearized world in which we live: It's not so much the number of countries who've managed to acquire their own Bomb that worries, but which ones. There are those leaders for whom a nuclear weapon is a deterrent, and others for whom it is something more, dangerously more.
Who's really worried about the British or French having the Bomb? Or the Chinese? Or even the Israelis? But a nuke in the hands of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or one that falls into the hands of a terrorist gang like al-Qaida as Pakistan falls apart … that's worrisome.
For once fanatics get their hands on a nuclear weapon, they'll use it, else they wouldn't be fanatics. To some a nuclear Armageddon isn't a calamity to be avoided but a consummation devoutly to be wished and brought about. That's the nature of the ideologized world in which we live in.
Just worrying about such a danger won't help. It won't do to just wring our hands. Or deliver solemn speeches. That's not a solution; it may be the biggest part of the problem. For that, too, is the nature of the world in which we live: Procrastination always beckons, action is so much easier to delegate than to take which means no one may ever take it. And one day we wake up to see flaming skyscrapers. Or a political figure who was a key to her country's hopes of stability struck down, and not just Pakistan but the world shakes.
There may have been only one leader who could somehow have made Pakistan a democracy. And now she's gone. Her party, perhaps the one truly national civil institution in her country, is in shambles and may never recover. No Bhuttos, no real opposition party. (In Pakistan, opposition politics is largely a family affair.) Now her country a nuclear power, lest we forget teeters on the edge of becoming another failed state. With consequences far beyond Pakistan. And we Americans, like the rest of the world, will have to deal with it, holding the hand Death now has dealt.
Now and then, like every morning, an editor glances at a news wire full of violence, danger, chaos and crisis, and thinks: This is the nature of the world we live in, and it is futile to wish the cards we'd been dealt were different. Instead, those whose lot it is to conduct this country's foreign policy will have to choose the lesser of so many evils. Whether it is making an alliance with a Stalin the United States has done that before or propping up a minor dictator who holds a major weapon, this is the world we live in. We must accept it and at the same time strive to make it a better, safer one. Quite a trick. If economics is the dismal science, it's positively cheerful compared to statecraft.
Even a single assassination can lead to a worldwide conflagration. It's happened before. The name Gavril Princip may turn up now only on Jeopardy or in other games of trivial pursuit, but his assassination of an Austrian archduke in the summer of 1914 led to results anything but trivial. That's the nature of the world in which we still live.
It's a world in which a military dictator like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, who used to cozy up to al-Qaida and the Taliban for his own reasons, decides to change course when the same terrorists attack his American patron. Like politics, survival makes strange bedfellows. Now the Pakistani strongman, who may not be so strong, is an ally an ally of convenience. But whether his notorious intelligence service has gotten the word is another question. That, too, is the nature of the world in which we live. It's divided not just into governments but within governments.
If there is a single qualification for leadership in such a world, if there is a single qualification for president of the United States, it's the willingness to recognize, and the determination to deal with, the nature of the world not as we might wish it but in which we must live.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
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