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Recent stories from the Sunday Globe Ideas section on the confrontation with Iraq and the Middle East. (Read this week's Ideas section)
September 15, 2002 Peace puzzle By Michael Berube
When it comes to Iraq, the right has no moral clarity and the left has lost its moral compass
October 6, 2002 A just war? By Jean Bethke Elshtain
Many of the country's leading ethicists oppose a strike on Iraq. But a look at the centuries-old theory of just war suggests that military action may in fact be morally necessary.
October 27, 2002 Inspecting Saddam By Tamar Miller and Tamar Morad
An Israeli historian helps diagnose the dictator
October 27, 2002 The end of the affair By Ussama Makdisi
Thanks to American missionaries and diplomats, the Arab world once looked to the United States as a friend and source of hope.
It didn't last.
November 3, 2002 The dissident By Laura Secor, Globe Staff
With his scorching expose of Saddam Hussein's brutality, Kanan Makiya established himself as Iraq's leading exile. Now he's talking with powerbrokers in the Bush administration. But can he push democracy to the top of their agenda?
November 17, 2002 The Word / Call him Saddam By Jan Freeman, Globe Staff
Saddam or Hussein? What do we call the Iraqi dictator when we're not calling him evil incarnate?
March 2, 2003 Chirac's other Iraq policy By Joshua Glenn, Globe Staff
Jacques Chirac's opposition to the Bush administration's march to war may have won him the applause of antiwar activists, but others have noted that the French president may have less than principled reasons for his position.
March 2, 2003 Imperial muddle By Ken Stier
After World War I, the British attempted to bring self-rule and political stability to the people of Iraq. The lessons for the United States are far from encouraging.
March 2, 2003 The anti-anti-Americans By Laura Secor, Globe Staff
Central Europeans may be wary of the Bush administration's war plans, but they're not at all wary of the United States.
March 16, 2003 The Blair War Project By Anthony Dworkin
The British prime minister is on a mission - and it's not George Bush's.
March 23, 2003 The world pushes back By Robert A. Pape
Even if the US scores a quick victory in Iraq, the rest of the world won't fall in line behind America's new global agenda. Welcome to the era of ''soft balancing.''
March 30, 2003 Thinking man's warrior By Laura Secor
In his best-selling account of the American-European divide, Robert Kagan gives the Bush administration's foreign policy its most sophisticated defense. Will anyone outside the US buy it?
April 6, 2003 Wartime lies By Laura Secor
In a realm where killing is not only tolerated but required, can we seriously quibble over, say, when it is or isn't right to tell a lie?
April 6, 2003 Shooting and scoring By Scott Stossel
Sports, it has been said, are the American idiom. But that alone doesn't entirely explain why there are so many similarities between the way television covers sports and the way it covers war.
April 6, 2003 Advise and dissent By James T. Kloppenberg
As disagreements over the war in Iraq ignite public controversy, it's worth recalling that antiwar protest is not an artifact of the Vietnam era but a tradition as old and venerable as the United States itself.
April 13, 2003 The twilight of tyrants And the promise of liberal revolution By Paul Berman
The tumbling statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad last Wednesday did look like something out of the revolutions of 1989, and this resembla
April 13, 2003 Petrol peril Why Iraq's oil wealth may do more harm than good By Daphne Eviatar
Having the world's second largest oil reserves doesn't necessarily improve Iraq's long-term prospects.
April 20, 2003 Fighting by the book By David B. Green
The Israeli army instructs its soldiers in a stringent ethical code. Can US forces learn from its example?
April 20, 2003 The Mission By Laura Secor
Protestant missionaries have been criticized for their plans to evangelize in Iraq. If history is any guide, they're not likely to have much luck anyway.
April 27, 2003 Tipping points
By Neil Swidey
Rice and flowers. That's how the Shi'ite Muslims of southern Lebanon greeted Israel Defense Forces as they steamed into their villages in June of 1982.
