...misconceived scheme ultimately meant to redirect global traffic in energy resources? Perhaps not hubris, but criminality raised to rarely seen levels, will inspire our future playwright. The two, again, do not exclude each other, and for playwrights this may merely be a matter of emphasis. Greek playwrights, haunted by the possibility of hubris, believed in words attributed to Euripides that “whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. And there is an inescapable aspect of madness attached to the fantasy world that the American president and his entourage inhabited for much of their duration; the cocoon that effectively cut them off from common sense political discourse. Even in his latest utterances, a month, weeks, days, before his departure, George W. Bush continued to give the impression that he has simply been cut off from reality. This insanity factor appeared to me to be the main explanation of the unfolding of events for several years. But I was cautioned by a friend, a wise American patriot, who remarked: “but remember, in a court of law the insanity plea, if successful, will let them off the hook; they are criminals, and we all know that criminals will commit a new...

...in his daily press conferences, and seems to be steadfast, even though he has not found a way to steer a new political course. He is the first Japanese prime minister who is also a TV celebrity, and is much more flamboyant than the average Japanese politician. Helped by the wishful thinking of many in the media he still comes across as a reformist politician even after four unproductive years. Reform is what Japanese want. The almost magical term has resonated with the public since a period of party political upheaval in 1993 when the idea gained ground that fundamental change in the way things were arranged in Japan was not only desirable but also possible. But exactly what any genuine reform might actually entail is rarely put before the public, with frustrated voices of the more thoughtful opposition politicians hardly ever getting through the din of supposed public opinion created by the media. So far Koizumi has served the agenda of activist officials within the Ministry of Finance. These believe that they have been instigating reform ever since they felt the need to restrain the public spending excesses caused by the the Tanaka army corps. The postal money project...

...registered with Washington, or for that matter with the European capitals, notwithstanding the proven incapacity of Israel to knock out that movement. For a while, during the recent assault on Gaza, Sarkozy created the impression that he was looking for an opening. He visited Cairo three times. But there was no sign of that anymore in Munich. In the eyes of the American government European preparedness to support it in Afghanistan has become the touchstone of European loyalty. Washington is preparing a ‘surge’, a (perhaps temporary) strengthening of its combat troops over there, after the Iraqi example. As Biden sees it: “The result must be a comprehensive strategy for which we all take responsibility that brings together our civilian and military resources that prevents a terrorist save haven, that helps the Afghan people develop the capacity to secure their own future.” In this matter European support comes with conditions. The German government in particular does not appear to have the slightest intention to cooperate by fighting against the Taliban in the southern part of the country. The Bundeswehr is in a relatively comfortable position in the North. (The ethnic factor of the minority position of the Pashtun, giving the Taliban...

In these days of multiple crises ingrained assumptions loom large as obstacles to be overcome. This goes for international relations as much as for the tottering financial system that has been absorbing most political attention in recent months. I just stumbled upon a number of interrelated misguided and, in mainstream discussion, rarely examined assumptions on my laptop. They appeared in an article published a year ago by John Ikenberry in Foreign Affairs entitled: The Rise of China and the Future of the West – can the Liberal System Survive? A quite appropriate read on my one but last day in Beijing, after having had an opportunity to look at Chinese life up close here and in Kunming and other places in Yunnan (a spectacularly beautiful province, by the way). Now, I like to read Ikenberry. I think that in earlier writing he has made important points about the example of liberal governance and ideals of emancipation upheld by the United States and Europe after World War II. The example by itself brought much positive change in many parts of the world during that last third of the twentieth century that saw the consolidation of a relatively peaceful and stable world...

...the notion that Russia will once again become a problem and after that a threat. And then there is China. More immediately, there are terrorists. Thus while with the steady drift of the United States into militarism “The West” becomes less convincing as a meaningful political category, it looms larger and larger in editorial comment and politician’s rhetoric. The story that has apparently captured the imagination of those who deny the reality of European serfdom in matters of global strategy portrays “The West” as besieged by forces that wish to undermine or destroy its “values”. A powerful paranoid fantasy of the American “way of life” being threatened by enemies now and enemies to come has crept into the discussions of European countries as well. American-grown nonsense about an internal European peril of its Muslim inhabitants – a transformation into “Eurabia” – has influenced European prattle about “Enlightenment values” and gives a hysterical edge to populist fear mongering about an imagined assault on such Western principles as freedom of speech. I will return to that theme soon, as we can notice the ease with which fantasies of new enemies proliferate. Fantasies that Europeans ought to help politically sane Americans to suppress....

...party trying to find its way and confused about where it wants to go. Of course it is inexperienced. That is what you are by definition, if you are doing something you have never done before. And of course its cabinet members are still trying to find their way. Very much of what should be in place for proper government – lines of communication, delegation of authority – must still be constructed, and a great challenge is to work out positive and productive relationships with Japan’s talented and experienced bureaucracy. But a confused Minshuto government? Only with respect to unexpected obstacles that still need to be properly defined. With respect to what it wants to accomplish, it is not at all confused. This media chatter provides a prime example of people so used to looking at reality through their conventional frames of reference that they cannot see what is staring them in the face. American reporters and commentators appear not to have a clue. What they think they see is described in terms of clumsiness and immaturity of a new party in power, if not as resulting from Japanese nationalism, or even the ready-made and stupid, intellectually dead-end, category of...