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In 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt founded an American civic organization called Freedom House to support the engagement of the United States in the monumental struggle for the survival of free nations against the oppressive forces of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Summoning fellow citizens to such a role was extraordinary. The United States was still familiar with John Quincy Adams's warning that we should not 'go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.'. Adapted from the source document.

On December 8, 2003, the International Court of Justice was requested by the United Nations General Assembly to give an advisory opinion on the "legal consequences" of the security fence under construction by Israel in the West Bank, also variously called "security barrier" and "wall." The General Assembly sought referral to the Court by a vote of 90 states—but another 74 states abstained, and 8 states voted in opposition. Careful consideration of the case was rendered especially difficult by the decision of the Court to set a truncated briefing schedule, permitting only six weeks for written submissions on jurisdiction and the merits. An even greater concern was the danger, perhaps realized, that the Court's opinion might be read as prejudging issues central to negotiations in the "Roadmap" political process seeking peace in the Middle East. The hope for some coherence in the approach of the international community to the resolution of a difficult and violent conflict is not otiose, especially where a stable settlement will require ongoing diplomatic, economic, and security support. For that very reason, two of the road map's sponsors—the United States and the Russian Federation—urged the Court to take account of the impact that any decision might have on the negotiating process. The European Union, as a third member of the "Quartet" sponsoring the road map, together with the ten acceding states to the European Union and fifteen other states, urged the Court to decline to render any advisor)' opinion at all because of the "compelling" circumstances of the peacemaking process.

For months, the candidates for president of the United States have pushed back and forth over the appropriate role of the United Nations and the international community as a whole, in the current conflict in Iraq. The election may well hinge on how voters respond to each man's argument. One of the nation's most prominent international scholars, Professor Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University, frames the question differently. As she sees it, the question is more fundamental. Can the U.N., with its carefully promulgated rules about when and under what circumstances military solutions are permissible, even cope with what's really happening in the world today? A summary of the event is available here.

At long last, the people of Iraq are freed from the brutality of Saddam Hussein. The swift success of the coalition's military campaign has been followed by predictable difficulties in organizing a hew government, restoring an economy, rebuilding civic society, and quelling violence from remnants of the old regime. But these challenges are kept in scale by recalling a dictator who murdered three hundred thousand fellow citizens. Saddam chose weapons of mass destruction as the central symbol of his domestic and international swagger—using the same internal security apparatus to parry United Nations inspectors and to extinguish domestic political dissent. Removing Iraq's Ba'athist regime has ended a looming danger to regional neighbors, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The crucial hopes for Middle East peace may also be enhanced by the change. And a new government in Baghdad lessens the chance that weapons matériel will be transferred to ill-intentioned nonstate actors.