As the banana war between the Philippines and China dies down, Max Boot has some strong words for the Obama administration’s handling of the incident. He criticizes the U.S. decision to remain neutral between a regional friend and America’s chief competitor: The Chinese leadership must figure they have a better chance to assert their claim […]

On Tuesday Via Meadia blogged about a decision by a court in Cologne that ruled “the body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision.” Our take was that by banning what for thousands of years has been seen as a core element of Jewish identity, law and tradition, the court was […]

European leaders have gotten a bad rap over the past few years for their timid and inept handling of the largest crisis Europe has faced in a generation. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse before they get better.Europe has an immensely confusing and byzantine system of chairmen and secretaries, capped off by its rotating […]

At a time when so many establishment paragons have failed, it’s reassuring that we still have people like Bob Zoellick serving this country. From U.S. Trade Representative to Deputy Secretary of State to head of the World Bank, Zoellick’s talent and determination have proved invaluable, and we at Via Meadia are pleased to see that […]

Bit by bit, the international community is learning just how unpleasant the Libyan afterparty can be. It’s not just that ex-Qaddafi mercenaries and terrorists have taken over a huge part of Mali. Other Sahel countries are fragile too, and the U.S. announced that it believes that Africa’s three most visible Islamist terror groups in Africa—Al […]

One of the byproducts of China’s rapid modernization is its increasing dependence on oil from the Middle East. China now gets about half of its oil from the Persian Gulf countries, and its never-ending thirst for crude has profound geopolitical ramifications.Keith Johnson of the Wall Street Journal has a neat summary highlighting the importance of […]

If you want to understand why liberalism doesn’t work very well anymore, travel up the Hudson River a few miles from New York.Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on large sodas isn’t the only thing inciting New Yorkers this week. Controversy is heating up over a bridge that maybe never should have been built.The longstanding plan to rebuild […]

To anyone struggling to make sense of the euro crisis, the FT has some helpful advice—watch Italy: Although Italy does not have Spain’s banks, Greece’s economy, or Ireland’s deficits, it is easy to forget how close to the edge Rome reached last summer under the erratic leadership of Silvio Berlusconi. It may not be an […]

Bashar al-Assad can breathe a bit easier this morning, as Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdoğan has explicitly ruled out any military retaliation after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet last Friday.Turkey’s Today’s Zaman reports: Ankara has long been saying that the Assad regime, facing a 16-month-long uprising, has been massacring its own people and that […]

Now that the Egyptian army has signed off on Mohamed Morsi as the country’s new president, the question hanging in the air is how much authority, if any, he has—and what he’ll do with it.As things stand, Morsi has few formal powers. During its mid-election power grab, the military took control over all legislative matters […]