Word: realpolitik
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...will--is not so much in between left and right as it is outside them, impatient with both A.C.L.U. niceties and Bushian moral absolutes. This season, Bauer allies with Hamri al-Assad, a (putatively) reformed terrorist leader, to stop an attack. He thus displays a better grasp of realpolitik than has the Bush Administration, which resisted the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to work with Iran and Syria. A fellow agent asks Bauer if it matters that al-Assad has murdered hundreds of people. "I don't know what means anything anymore," he answers. "The playing field has changed...
...Realpolitik" dictated, for example, that the Soviets' downing of a Korean airliner in September 1983, killing 269 people, was not allowed to significantly interfere with business as usual. And "realpolitik" eventually paid off - at least for the West - as the Soviet Union disappeared a few years later without a shot being fired. Today, "realpolitik" has given way to "realeconomics" - who cares if Moscow bumps off its citizens in Chechnya or elsewhere as long as the oil and natural gas are flowing from Russia? The West reacts most loudly when its investments in Russia are endangered...
Sitting in front of his blackboard in a Gaza university, Professor Mohammed Shabir, 60, is more at home in the microscopic realms of squirming protozoa than he is with Palestinian realpolitik. But that may soon change. The main Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas need to come up with a compromise candidate for prime minister of a unity government led by technocrats, and Shabir may be just the man. The position needs someone respected by the armed Palestinian factions, who at the same time is acceptable to the international community, which has withheld funds from the Palestinian Authority since Hamas took...
...doctrine of realism, or its Prussian-accented cousin realpolitik, emphasizes a hard-nosed focus on clearly defined national interests, such as economic or security goals, pursued with a pragmatic calculation of commitments and resources. Idealism, on the other hand, emphasizes moral values and ideals, such as spreading democracy, and is apt to be more crusading and sentimental in its willingness to pay any price and bear any burden. Adherents of the second cliché argue that these days there is little distinction between the two because spreading democracy is in our economic and security interest. Our difficulties in Iraq, however, show...
...Gates's appointment means Bush is waking up to realpolitik, Bob Gates is as good an aide as any. Who knows, he may be the one who will set the stage for an eventual withdrawal from Iraq. After all, he knows all about failed Middle East policies, and how to salvage what can be salvaged. And Bush certainly can use a little of Gates's discretion. Another prima donna at the Pentagon is the last thing the President needs...