Tag: pragmatism

• March 18, 2009

  TURKEY’S RETURN TO GLORY

  This article just appeared in Today’s Zaman and in Zaman which is Turkey’s preeminent journal. As you can see this has been part of my ongoing efforts to introduce and encourage far more intermediaries in the Middle Eastern conflict who can be effective, trustworthy and more even handed that Western intervention. This is meant also to encourage the United States, Hilary Clinton, and others to follow the lead of where the most moderate voices of the Islamic world are going. This is also a development of my work in Syria which has encouraged cultural revival that is peace-oriented, practical and visionary at once.

  Turkey’s return to glory
  by
  Marc Gopin
  For reasons of history, culture and geography, there is a surprising opportunity for Turkey to assume a position of central global leadership in the 21st century and thereby further all of its legitimate national interests.

  This is shocking considering the

  …

• November 6, 2008

  PRAGMATIC AND PROGRESSIVE: TWO WORDS FOR THE NEW AMERICAN ERA

  Barack Obama, my new president, has ushered in a new era of American history, on many levels. But we are quickly moving to the question of how President Obama’s leadership and governance will operate, what will it look like in practice. Everyone is looking for clues, and Dan Balz has an excellent article on deciphering those hints of the future, based on Tom Mann’s insights at the Brookings Institution.

  His voting record and the platform upon which he ran certainly suggest that his beliefs put him left of center. But Obama allies point to his pledge to govern inclusively as a counter to those who say his real purpose is to drive through the liberals’ agenda.

  “He is genuinely a progressive, but he’s not an ideologue,” argued Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution. “He’s a broadly pragmatic person who, when confronted with new situations, is prepared to take a new

  …

• October 26, 2008

  AMERICAN STRIKE ON SYRIA: A GIFT FROM CHENEY TO MCCAIN?

  The timing is amazing from a neoconservative point of view, a few days before the American elections. Right now, after years of scrupulously avoiding crossing into Syrian territory, the American military receives instructions to invade a town in Syria and kill 8 people.

  A U.S. military official confirmed late Sunday an American helicopter attack in an area along Syria’s border with Iraq, which left 8 people dead and three people wounded.

  Syria condemned the attack, which it called “serious aggression.”

  We are closer than ever before to serious conversations between Israel and Syria, Syria has recognized an international border with Lebanon for the first time in modern history, and this is horrifying to neoconservatives who ran Washington for the last decade. They need to use force and force only to conquer Iraq, Iran and Syria. And they need to promote a conception of the American presidency that is focused …