Word: realpolitikers
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...Indeed, the Arabist version of Realpolitik raises the essential question about Iraq, the one that should have been asked before the invasion: Can the U.S. impose Western niceties-democracy, a constitution, a national army-on a noncountry divided into tribes and sects and family dynasties? My guess is that Petraeus might say yes and Crocker might say no, but that both would agree the U.S. does have a role in mediating the mayhem as the Iraqis stumble toward their own solutions. The general comes to this moment more optimistic than the ambassador, which is why Crocker should be listened...
...last week in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah gunmen, he said that Islamic Jihad had refrained from firing rockets at Israel. "We decided to stop launching rockets until we could see what developed," he explained. His organization's penchant for brave but foolhardy attacks has made it immune to realpolitik, and it may take some persuading by Hamas to convince Islamic Jihad to hold off its attacks...
Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days. Yet 30 weeks after the substance was administered to Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, its potency seems undiminished, contaminating relations between two former imperial powers and pitting the demands of justice against the exigencies of realpolitik. London's request to Moscow on Tuesday to extradite Andrei Lugovoi as chief suspect in Litvinenko's murder drew a response that's increasingly familiar to Kremlin watchers: an abrupt no. There were some obvious reasons for Russian intransigence. The case is a skein of disputed plots and subplots. Lugovoi and one companion - or two, according...
...Defense chief Robert Gates represents the more Realpolitik team now taking over. He has warned Iraqi leaders that the U.S. military is not on indefinite loan to the Iraqi government and has lauded Democratic efforts to impose a timetable for troop withdrawal. Although Gates has won plaudits from Congress for his candor, he and President George W. Bush clearly need help crafting Iraq policy. That's why the White House is hunting for a "war czar." So far, half a dozen former military officers have declined the offer. Most retired officers under 62 can be ordered back to active duty...
...needs silver linings. But for Bush and Rice it may also reveal a deeper philosophical shift. In recent years the Bush team has split over whether to abandon the ambition that underpinned the invasion of Iraq--to bring Western-style democracy to the Islamic world--in favor of conventional Realpolitik, in which idealism takes a backseat to stability. The most obvious signals that the U.S. is tilting back toward realism came on Rice's trip to the Middle East last month, in which she toned down calls for democracy for the Arabs and talked up her desire to broker...