McCain or Obama: Either Way It’s All Up to Israel

While Americans try to sort out the question of who will be their next president, the real question people should be asking themselves is, “Will Israel have the courage to save itself–and the rest of the world–when it comes time to deal with Iran?”
It really doesn’t matter whether the American electorate takes the unlikely view that [...]

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Kemalism and the Future of the Middle East

One look into those lively eyes should convince you that this is no typical Middle Eastern leader.  This is Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk”–father of the Turks, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, whose remarkable legacy, Kemalism, is the only modern secular national ideology holding its own in the Middle East. 
In a heartening display of Turkish secularism that [...]

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Powell History Person of the Year, Part 1

Time has crowned Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year, with Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, Hu Jin Tao of China, and General Petraeus as runners-up.
In making its selection, Time has offered an interesting justification. 
TIME’s Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not [...]

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Hollow Estimate

The declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is an interesting document.  It is put together by the National Intelligence Council, whose basic objectives–as stated in the NIE–include “to broaden and deepen the Intelligence Community’s perspective.”
In this Council’s document on the “intentions” of the leading sponsor of Islamic Terrorism in the world and an [...]

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What’s in a Building?

The world’s tallest building is under construction…in the Middle East.
After recently watching an interesting documentary about Dubai (in the United Arab Emirates) on 60 minutes, I briefly became fascinated with that city. The documentary called it “the largest construction site on the planet”–already boasting a phenomenal indoor ski slope, and man-made island groupings in the [...]

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Columbus Week at Powell History!

Unlike modern historians, I am a huge fan of Christopher Columbus.  I would rank him as one of the ten most important men in history–and for the good!  So Powell History is going to celebrate not just Columbus Day, but as a small measure of justice for a man so wrongly villified in our modern [...]

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A Republic, If You Can Keep It

In my very recent move from OC to Houston, my family “self-moved,” and as we trucked down the I8 and (just past Phoenix) the I10, I was struck by the sad fact that these highways have now basically become a second border with Mexico, and I was driven to reflect on what this means in terms of America’s [...]

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