Banning the Bomb: A New Approach  

In July of 1945, U.S. president Harry Truman wrote in his diary, “It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing …







Iran and the West: A Symposium  

The editors of Dissent asked a number of distinguished commentators to respond to the following statement and questions: For a quarter of a century, Iran has been ruled by a militant theocracy. After the shah’s regime–authoritarian, brutal, and backed by …







Immoral Hazards: New Orleans Style  

“Moral hazard” is a term deployed by many economists and politicians to criticize and dismantle public programs. Missing from their vocabularies is the parallel term “immoral hazard.” New Orleans’ hurricane and aftermath reveal that immoral hazards have been ignored. The …





Iran: High Stakes  

Published here is the speech given by Joschka Fischer, former German foreign minister (Green Party), in Tehran on August 1, 2006, to the Iranian Center for Strategic Research.



Editor’s Page  

Containment or rollback? Of the Republicans, I mean—not communism in the 1950s. It is a question about the (happy) results of the midterm elections. Were they just a vote against George W. Bush or do they represent a decisive shift …



The London Review of Hezbollah  

Critics, mostly though not exclusively European, who hammer away at Israeli misbehavior often show no concern about the dangers that beset Israel. Their one-sided animus verges on scandal. Criticism of Israeli behavior may be justified, but it loses credit when …





Michael Walzer on the American Left  

Todd Gitlin, Frances Fox Piven and Michael Walzer spoke at a City University of New York symposium on “The Vanishing American Left” in September 2006. These essays are drawn from their talks. —EDS. I don’t know about “vanishing”—we probably weren’t …



Islam in the West  

Books discussed: The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? by Tony Blankley; Breaking the Silence: French Women’s Voices from the Ghetto by Fadela Amara, with Sylvia Zappi,
translated and with an introduction by Helen Harden Chenut; The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer; Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis
by Bat Ye’or.