Opinion

• Arianna Huffington: Where Have All the Architects of War Gone? HuffingtonPost.com - Tue Jul 18, 5:25 PM ET

  In his terrific post on the hornets' nest we've kicked open in the Middle East, Gary Hart makes the point that as the fighting spreads, we have seen precious little of "the nation's wisemen, those neoconservative idealists who saw the great American empire imposing democracy on the Middle East at the point of a bayonet."

• Biden's Gaffe: No Apology Needed RealClearPolitics.com - 8 minutes ago

  Last week, U.S. Senator Joe Biden caused a kerfuffle with his comment about the Indian-American population in his home state of Delaware.

• Brothers in Arms The Nation - 7 minutes ago

  The Nation -- There's been much chatter about President Bush's earthy open-mic discussion of the Middle East crises with Tony Blair.

• Timothy Naftali: Israel's Endgame? HuffingtonPost.com - Wed Jul 19, 12:57 AM ET

  Hezbollah is a nasty, unrepentant Islamicist organization that until 9/11 had more American blood on its hands than any terrorist group in the world.

• Iraq Continues to Boil RealClearPolitics.com - Tue Jul 18, 5:41 PM ET

  The news in Iraq continues to darken. There has been some progress, yes, but also a spate of horrific violence that suggests the Maliki government may have lost its grip, at least temporarily, on shepherding forward a fragile political peace and process of national reconciliation.

• Beirut Burns Again The Nation - Tue Jul 18, 7:46 PM ET

  The Nation -- For coverage of the unfolding conflagration in Lebanon and beyond, the best English-language newspaper coverage has been that of David Hirst at The Guardian (such as his latest op-ed), and Robert Fisk at The Independent, who has won numerous awards for his reporting on the Middle East.

• SEND CONDI? William F. Buckley - Tue Jul 18, 8:26 PM ET

  So we incline to support Israel, which is understandable, but which raises, also, questions.

• DEMOCRATS PLAY POLITICS WITH HUMAN LIFE Maggie Gallagher - Tue Jul 18, 8:23 PM ET

  The Senate on Tuesday debated three important bills: Castle-DeGette, which expands federal funding for stem-cell research that kills human embryos; Santorum-Specter, which funds new research that uses the latest techniques to obtain embryonic-like stem cells without actually destroying embryos; and Brownback-Santorum, which would ban "fetal farming" or the practice of growing human fetuses for the purpose of using their body parts.

• JUST FOR A NICKEL TOKEN James Kilpatrick - Tue Jul 18, 8:23 PM ET

  On a Tuesday morning five years ago, Stella Romanski set out to have lunch with her girlfriends. Now she's in the U.S. Supreme Court defending a judgment in her favor of $600,779. And 5 cents.

• MIDEAST CRISIS TOOK ADVANTAGE OF REGION'S INSTABILITY Georgia Anne Geyer - Tue Jul 18, 8:23 PM ET

  WASHINGTON -- As always in the Middle East, the overnight transformation of terrorism to all-out war seems to have come out of nowhere. Here we were, minding our business, fighting only two wars in the region and merely contemplating a few more, when all hell broke loose in exactly the two places it wasn't supposed to.

• It's Our War The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:27 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars?

• The Rogues Strike Back The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:24 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - Iran thumbs its nose at Western diplomats and continues nuclear enrichment. Hamas's chief, speaking from Damascus, boasts about kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah launches a cross-border raid, prompting Israeli retaliation in Beirut and a return volley of rockets on northern Israel. Just another bleak week in the hopeless Middle East? Regrettably, no. This one was different. This was the week the Dark Side went on the offensive.

• Bush's Fab Five The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:23 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - PRESIDENT BUSH, en route to last weekend's G8 summit in Russia, paused for a day in what used to be Communist East Germany, where he learned from German chancellor Angela Merkel the proper way to carve a roasted boar.

• Bombs over Beirut The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:23 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - Beirut IT SEEMS LIKE only yesterday that a Hezbollah deputy in Lebanon's parliament was saying that even if Iran wound up playing his beloved Brazilian squad in a World Cup match, he would have to side with Ronaldinho and Co. In the last 48 hours, though, it has become clear that when the stakes are really high, Hezbollah is always going to side with Iran, even if this means holding all of Lebanon hostage.

• Joe Wilson, Mark Lane, and more. The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:21 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - Joe Wilson's Latest 15 Minutes

• Friends of Italy The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:18 PM ET

  Washington (The Daily Standard) - JerusalemSOCCER IS NOT ONLY Italy's national past time, but also Israel's. The semifinal and final games of the World Cup were watched with trepidation and anxiety this past week throughout the streets of Israel's main cities. Except for the Hebrew being spoken, it would have been easy to fool oneself into thinking that you were in the Eternal City of Rome, not the Holy City of Jerusalem, as the Israelis cheered passionately for Italy.

• An OPEC With Nukes? The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:18 PM ET

  Washington (The Daily Standard) - THE RECENT SUMMIT of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization--a group consisting of China, Russia, and four Central Asian countries--has evoked alarm about a potent anti-American bloc emerging in the heart of Eurasia.

• ONE FLAG TOO HIGH William F. Buckley - Mon Jul 17, 11:47 AM ET

  President Bush is a victim of his idealistic certitudes.

• FREE SPEECH IS LOSER WHERE RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IS CONCERNED John Leo - Mon Jul 17, 11:46 AM ET

  Brittany McComb's microphone went dead at her high school commencement because school officials thought she was talking too much about religion.

• MILITARY VETS FIGHT BACK AGAINST CRUEL TREATMENT OF PRISONERS Cynthia Tucker - Mon Jul 17, 11:44 AM ET

  Thank heaven for military veterans such as Lindsay Graham and John McCain.

Most Popular Opinion

• Downsizing and the Catholic Church USATODAY.com - Mon Jul 17, 6:35 AM ET

  In and around our nation's big cities, hundreds of Catholic parishes, schools and hospitals are consolidating and closing. Many of these institutions have long provided the foundation - as well as provided for the faith - of urban neighborhoods and immigrant communities.

• ONE FLAG TOO HIGH William F. Buckley - Mon Jul 17, 11:47 AM ET

  President Bush is a victim of his idealistic certitudes.

• Southwest's boarding strategy may cost more time, airline's bottom line USATODAY.com - Tue Jul 18, 7:10 AM ET

  I am distressed to see that Southwest Airlines, the industry's most customer-friendly and egalitarian carrier, is considering assigning seats as a means of achieving a more rapid boarding process and, hence, turnaround ("At 35, Southwest's strategy gets more complicated," Cover story, Money, July 11).

• The Rogues Strike Back The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:24 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - Iran thumbs its nose at Western diplomats and continues nuclear enrichment. Hamas's chief, speaking from Damascus, boasts about kidnapping an Israeli soldier. Hezbollah launches a cross-border raid, prompting Israeli retaliation in Beirut and a return volley of rockets on northern Israel. Just another bleak week in the hopeless Middle East? Regrettably, no. This one was different. This was the week the Dark Side went on the offensive.

• It's Our War The Weekly Standard - Mon Jul 17, 12:27 PM ET

  Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 011, Issue 42 - 7/24/2006 - WHY IS THIS ARAB-ISRAELI WAR different from all other Arab-Israeli wars?