Column Archive

Editor’s note: This will be Robert Farley’s final “Over the Horizon” column at World Politics Review. However, we look forward to featuring his work in WPR in the future. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Robert for making “Over the Horizon” a must read over the past year and a half and to wish him success in all his many endeavors. The intellectual battle over the future of American hegemony has been joined. Andrew Bacevich argues that the American Century has ended and that further American pretentions to hegemony will lead to disaster. Michael Cohen argues that the […]

This weekend’s election in Russia has unsurprisingly returned Vladimir Putin to the country’s presidency. In contrast to the preordained outcome of the Russian voting, the winner of this November’s U.S. presidential election is not yet known. But whoever occupies the White House in 2013 will need to consider the bilateral arms control relationship with Russia in coming years. And although the implementation of the New START agreement is going well, there are sharp differences in Washington and Moscow over where to go next. Moscow’s main concerns focus on U.S. missile defense and U.S. superiority in conventional forces. Both conditions work […]

The debate among U.S. foreign policy analysts over the wisdom of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities — and whether or not America should allow itself to be drawn into an ensuing conflict with Iran should Israel strike — has largely taken place parallel to the debate over whether to pursue an R2P, or responsibility to protect, intervention in Syria. It bears noting, however, that forcing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s departure may be the best near-term policy for the U.S. to avoid being sucked into an Israeli-Iranian war. Clearly the Assad ruling clan deserves our best efforts short of […]

The conventional wisdom in U.S. policy circles is that China’s support for autocrats in the Middle East, most recently manifested by its veto of a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by the Arab League that called for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to step down, has placed Beijing on the wrong side of history. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the conclusion of the Friends of Syria conference in Tunis, warned the Chinese that “they are setting themselves against the aspirations not only of the Syrian people but of the entire Arab Spring.” The implication is that […]

As the ground continues to shift in the Middle East, the cracks that have long existed inside the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are coming to the surface. The growing divisions could split the organization, but they have wider implications. Hamas’ alliance with Tehran is becoming increasingly untenable. Long a fixture of the modern Middle East, the four-member bloc comprised of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah is slowly coming apart. The strains of adapting to the changing regional landscape are showing in Hamas’ two-tier leadership, divided between those in exile and those who remain in the Palestinian territories. In recent months, […]