The news is not that climate shapes history. What is news is that the heating of our atmosphere has propelled our climate into a new state of instability. This new era of climate change could well be the most profound threat ever facing humanity. Its most predictable is stability—in our political systems, our economic organizations and our weather.
While the Clinton administration seeks to restrict handgun sales at home, it has quietly arranged to sell more and more weapons abroad.
It is not surprising that Jerusalem has become the sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Israeli refusal to share the city with the Palestinians and the Clinton administration’s refusal to push the Israelis to compromise make successful negotiations extremely difficult.
Prior to George W. Bush’s decision to choose Dick Cheney to head up his search for a running mate–a quest which ended on Tuesday, July 25th with the announcement that Cheney himself had landed the job–for most Americans, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate was at best a dimly remembered figure from the bygone days of the Gulf war.
As the Clinton Administration pushes for a high-level resumption of final status talks between Israelis and Palestinians, we are again hearing the mantra that both sides need to compromise, both sides cannot have everything they want and other familiar exhortations. This has been the administration’s approach since the singing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993.
President Hafez Assad leaves a mixed legacy. He brought relative stability in his thirty-year reign to a country which had been wracked with coups and counter-coups in the preceding years, yet it came at an enormous price in terms of basic human rights. He maintained a commitment to socialism and nationalism, yet did so through a cult of personality and insular style which alienated Syrians from across the political spectrum. He successfully curbed the influence of extremist Islamic movements, but at a cost of many thousands of lives in a brutal 1982 crackdown.
According to a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations, “[T]he average American believes we spend 18% of the federal budget on foreign affairs, while thinking we should spend only 6%. In reality, foreign affairs spending, the bully pulpit of America’s strength overseas, is now only 1% of the federal budget–a little more than one penny of every federal tax dollar.” 1
Key Points
Special Report Corporate Welfare and Foreign Policy By Janice C. Shields Annual Subsidies for Exporters, Importers, and International Investors Tax Breaks Benefiting Exporters, Importers, and International Investors Laws Benefiting Exporters, Importers, and International Investors