Crisis glimpsed through a glass darkly

Bridge of metaphors

A Dutch historian casts off metaphor as he turns his gaze on to the melancholy procession across Turkey's bridge to Europe.

Monsieur Omnipresident is wised up

What goes around comes around. Having managed for seven years to do without one, the European Council is resorting yet again to the tried and tested formula of a comité des sages to look into the future and tell the European Union how to prepare for the formidable challenges ahead. In granting President Nicolas Sarkozy's wish for such a committee, EU heads of government are cheerfully oblivious to charges that they are returning to their comfort zone of elitist, top-down policymaking. And we are all left trying to understand their motives for doing so.

Doves and hawks are ostriches in disguise

The key judgments of this week's US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) take up barely two and a half pages but have fundamentally altered the parameters of the discussion on how to deal with Iran. “We judge with high confidence,” the document says, “that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

Unlocking potential is name of the game

Recently, in the midst of an excellent concert by the European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO), the words “unlocking Europe's potential” suddenly came to mind.

Failing states fashioned from Bush's coat-tails

International policy has failed to keep Pakistan and Palestine from inching closer to the brink: both are potential failed states and both could take their entire region down with them, especially nuclear-armed Pakistan. For once, the intellectually lazy response – to blame it on the Americans – is correct.