WARSAW - Last Saturday, the Polish president, the Polish national bank chairman, the chief of the Polish general staff and a host of other military and political leaders, some of whom were my friends and my husband’s colleagues, died in a tragic plane crash in the forest near Smolensk, Russia, not far from where 20,000 Polish officers were secretly murdered by Joseph Stalin 70 years ago. Yet this time around, nobody suspects a conspiracy. Read on »

In this era of commerce and trade, it often happens that countries that might once have gone to war play out their antagonisms through other means. The immigration debate plays this role in Mexican American relations. Read on »

WARSAW - The stylist looked over my clothes. “Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I thought you would have in your wardrobe,” he said, eyeing my modest collection of suits with barely disguised disdain. He picked up a blue jacket gingerly, as if the dye might rub off in his hands. “This is a very … difficult color,” he said. He grimaced, and removed it to another chair. Read on »

My fellow disappointed conservatives, former conservatives, and disgusted conservatives, it is time for all good Republicans to come to the defense of David Frum and to endorse his critique of radical right-wing talk-show rhetoric. If you’ve left the party in disgust, call up your friends who are still members and get them to do it for you. Read on »

“Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks. And sell the Acropolis too!”— headline, Bild newspaper, March 4, 2010

Sometimes they cut to the essence of the story, those tabloid headline-writers, even when they haven’t got the quotation exactly right. Read on »

To say that Santiago, Chile, looks far better today than Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is of no comfort to the people of Chile. It will not rebuild their ruined houses, nor will it bring back their dead. It will not reconstruct the damaged airport or mobilize the field hospitals and emergency supplies needed to keep the death toll from rising further. Read on »

Let’s be serious for a moment. President Barack Obama will not bomb Iran. This is not because he is a liberal, or because he is a peacenik, or because he doesn’t have the guts to try and “save” his presidency in this time-honored manner, as Sarah Palin said she would like him to do. Read on »

I have seen America’s future, and it is Greece. Read on »

Every revolution sparks a counterrevolution. The French Revolution in 1789 was followed by Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy. Following the Russian Revolution, the czar’s forces regrouped and fought a bloody civil war. Sunday’s election of Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency of Ukraine does not represent the counterrevolution—or at least not yet. Read on »

ZURICH—We inch forward, and then we stop. Then we inch forward again. Then, for half a mile or so we speed up, and it seems we are actually going to start making real time. Then we stop. A few more inches forward , and then we stop again. Read on »