World

Douglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths In front of me at the University of Chicago, and several times my height, is a stone carving of a half-human deity from the Assyrian empire. All round this exhibition on ancient Iraq are towering artefacts from lost cities and faded empires. The whole is overshadowed by a room featuring the Baghdad looting of 2003. Beside me, a father tries to answer a question from his son: ‘What happened to Babylon?’ The father attempts to explain how empires ebb and flow — how armies rise and fall.

Expect more of this. The ad hits McCain on jobs, lobbying and Washington insiderishness and has a nativist whack at dodgy foreigners too. In other words, it’s probably pretty effective…

Episode three of the Geras vs Massie cricketing showdown is underway. It’s Norm’s turn to pick first and, as I feared he might, he’s exploiting his greater knowledge of South African cricket. Getting my excuses in early, I consider myself the underdog in this game. Anyway, the rules are the same as ever: only chaps who have played post-1945 are eligible for selection… You can follow the action here and, of course, at Norm’s place too.

How about this for an opening sentence? The details of who did what to precipitate Russia’s war against Georgia are not very important. Who, you ask, is this clown? None other than Robert Kagan, writing today in the Washington Post. His second sentence is also a doozy: Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? And how about this? Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia’s attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century

Film critic and cultural historian Neil Gabler has an interesting column on the Presidential race in today’s Los Angeles Times. He concludes: It is axiomatic that the more powerful the theme a star embodies, the more powerful his or her stardom. Obama’s theme is a potent one. Whether one buys into it or not, he promises to cross divides — political, ideological, racial, geographic — and to transcend the old politics of fear and hate that has commandeered recent elections. He believes that America can — and should — be the moral beacon for the world by returning to its core values. In analyzing his own appeal, Obama says he

Edward Lucas concludes his op-ed in The Times on the Ossetian dilemma with this: The fighting should be a deafening wake-up call to the West. Our fatal mistake was made at the Nato summit in Bucharest in April, when Georgia’s attempt to get a clear path to membership of the alliance was rebuffed. Mr Saakashvili warned us then that Russia would take advantage of any display of Western weakness or indecision. And it has. Indeed, as I suggested yesterday, Russia has taken advantage of “western weakness” by responding to a Georgian offensive. Given that Saakashvili has been bold enough to send his troops into South Ossetia even though his determination

Well, the Olympics have finally arrived. James Fallows has been my go-to China blogger for some time. I heartily recommend his blog to you and suggest it will be well worth reading over the next couple of weeks. Not for its coverage of the games as such, but because he has a sympathetic humanist’s appreciation of what the games mean to China and the Chinese people. I also think he is right when he argues, as has done repeatedly, that it is in everyone’s interests that these are successful games. Of course, London is next. One of the remarkable things about modern Britain is the joyously jaundiced view many Britons

After the West Indian misfortune, in which my selection was, I’m afraid, bested by Norm’s we move on to episode two of our series in which we select cricket teams, playground football style, from players who played at least some test cricket after 1945. This time I have first pick of country and player and, this being so, choose to play Australia. This being the case, it will not surprise you that with the first pick in the Australian draft, I select Sir Donald Bradman. Over to you Norm…

Is there a more pathetically ineffectual phrase in current misuse than ‘international condemnation’? “Oooh, how awful, listen up everyone. Our violent and bloody military coup is attracting international condemnation. We must desist immediately, apologize profusely to all concerned and give ourselves over to international justice.” I don’t think so somehow.

Apparently in 2002 the Pentagon commissioned a study (which I’ve not read yet) of imperial power entitled the “Military Advantage in History,” with a view to appreciating what the United States could learn from previous imperial adventures. Since the US is an imperial power, that’s not too daft a project. More on this later, perhaps. But for now I was struck by Dana Goldstein’s response: It’s fascinating that although Roman history can be read as a cautionary anti-imperial tale, the ONA [Office of Net Assessment] report lauds Rome as the foremost example for an American empire, without even nodding toward Rome’s failures or fall. But it’s not too surprising that

Panorama tonight: The Olympic Games are special. The biggest show on earth – with an estimated global television audience of four billion people. But hosting the Games brings extreme attention and extreme scrutiny. Chinese Premier Wen Jibao promised that foreign media would be free to report on Chinese politics, economics and society in the build-up to the Games, a pledge at odds with the Western perception of China as a restrictive and secretive state. In Panorama: China’s Olympic Promise, reporter John Sweeney sought to put this assurance to the test as he travelled across China following the path of the Olympic torch. Well, fine. But there’s something mildly grotesque about