On the Fate of Communism  

Asked by the German periodical Die Zeit in August 1989 whether the opening of a MacDonald’s franchise in Moscow signified “the end of Communism,” Daniel Bell wrote the following reply.—Eds. To answer the question posed by Die Zeit directly would …



A Patriotic Left  

I love my country. I love its passionate and endlessly inventive culture, its remarkably diverse landscape, its agonizing and wonderful history. I particularly cherish its civic ideals-social equality, individual liberty, a populist democracy-and the unending struggle to put their laudable, …







Editor’s Page  

Slowly, an intelligent opposition to the Bush administration’s domestic and foreign policies is taking shape. Not only from leftists: some thoughtful conservatives have begun to worry out loud about the ideological stridency and rigidity of their own leaders. There was …



Jeffrey C. Isaac Responds  

I argued in my Dissent essay that the campus antiwar left is moralistic and politically irresponsible. Steger asserts that my tone is one of “haughty confidence” and claims that I caricature the pacifism of the campus left and idealize “realist …







The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine  

The great simplifiers are hard at work, but Israel/Palestine has never been a friendly environment for them, and it is especially unfriendly today. They are bound to get it wrong, morally and politically, and that is a very bad thing …





Failed Democratization in the Arab World  

Because al-Qaeda’s ideology is rooted in an extreme version of Islam, post-September 11 discourse has focused mostly on ways that Islam may, in certain circumstances, give rise to bin Laden-like phenomena. This sort of approach is both facile and wrong, …





In Defense of Multilateralism  

The argument seems easy: the International Criminal Court represents a significant step toward a global rule of law, and the United States should be part of it. That’s ultimately right, but the argument is more complicated, and there are political …