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Three childhood memories, three moments in modern Islamic history, all hanging on the childish belief that foreign-born solutions will work for the region. The West has spent decades hoping for and plotting a neat trajectory of Middle Eastern modernization. But whether vested in peace treaties or the Shah's imported pomp, those plans have never quite worked out. Not a SOFA agreement, not the Shah's speechifying about modernization, not a party in desert tents stocked with marble baths and champagne could sustain Jimmy Carter's mirage of an Iran that was "an island of security in a troubled...
...Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was there this year, and he knew there was no chance he could avoid the single most important issue that leaders in the here and now confront: not Internet censorship in China, not U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. No, the question of the day is whether the Islamic Republic of Iran will be permitted to develop nuclear weapons while the rest of the world stands around and chats about it. Here's what Yang told the group in Munich: "The parties concerned should, with the overall and long-term interests in mind, step up diplomatic efforts...
...Whether the U.S. shared information about what it knows about possible Israeli planning for a strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities is not known. What's known is that Beijing appeared to be unmoved by what it was told. Yang's speech earlier this month and several public statements by other Chinese officials similar to it still show little appetite in Beijing for U.N.-induced sanctions that might affect Iran's oil and gas industry...
...known for a long time that there are too many bad schools in the U.S., dropout factories that shove barely literate children through the system. Because of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) - the George W. Bush - era education law that forces every school to report whether it makes "adequate yearly progress" toward nationwide math- and reading-proficiency standards - we can now point to exactly which schools are the lowest performing and the least improving. With that information in hand, the question becomes, Well, what do we do about it? (See TIME's special report on paying for college...
...vote has sparked the usual questions about whether there is a fundamental cultural divide between the U.S. and Europe over balancing security concerns with civil liberties. But the real significance may be simply institutional: the European Parliament, freshly endowed with new lawmaking powers following the passage of the Lisbon Treaty last year, is flexing its muscles as an emerging player in European politics. Suddenly, the legislative body has a semblance of real power - something it never really had before. (See the worst business deals...