Financial Times

Soon after I arrived in Moscow as a correspondent at the start of 1993, Andrei Kozyrev, the then Russian foreign minister, made a speech warning that if the west continued to ignore Russia’s vital interests and publicly humiliate the country, there would one day be a Russian reaction that would sweep away the new partnership with the west that he and other Russian liberals were trying to build. A western colleague scrawled on a transcript of his remarks: "More of… more

The US House of Representatives on Friday issued a rebuke to George W. Bush’s Iraq strategy in the first concrete demonstration of opposition to the war by Capitol Hill since the US-led invasion almost four years ago.The 246-182 vote was non-binding and will have no impact on Mr Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500 extra troops in addition to the 131,000 already there as part of his “new way forward in Iraq” unveiled last month...Democratic leaders plan… more

Over the past year the spotlight has come to fall on China's aggressive economic foray into Africa, where it secures energy stakes while doling out cheap credit. More cautiously, however, China also has been building new bridges to the Middle East, carving a place in a strategic region that is home to two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves.The advance into the Middle East creates another front in Beijing's growing global rivalry with Washington and other western countries. "China's… more

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2008 presidential frontrunner, on Wednesday delivered an impassioned call for Americans to move beyond partisanship and embrace a “new bargain” that would address the growing economic insecurities of the country’s middle class.Delivering one of her most confident and self-deprecating speeches so far, Mrs Clinton berated the administration of George. W.?Bush for allegedly refusing to tackle the US’s biggest problems which, she said, included lack of universal healthcare, median wage stagnation and the… more

George W. Bush on Friday sought to deny widespread rumours his administration was preparing some kind of military action against Iran. Mr Bush confirmed a report in Friday’s Washington Post that he had authorised US troops to shoot and kill Iranian operatives in Iraq, but denied this was a prelude to stronger action.“We believe we can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically,” said the US president. “It makes sense that if somebody is trying to harm our troops,… more

The single most famous document expressing America’s commitment to freedom in the world must surely be President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s "Four Freedoms" speech of 1941, calling for US resistance to Nazi and Japanese aggression. The freedoms Roosevelt spoke of were freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear, which he defined in terms of the permanent abolition of aggressive war.

This statement is so familiar that few notice an extraordinary omission. The freedom to… more

Although it had been billed as one of the most important speeches of his presidency, there were few signs on Wednesday that George W. Bush’s State of the Union address had succeeded in stemming the rapid haemorrhaging of his authority.A number of leading Democrats, including Barack Obama, a front-runner for the 2008 presidential campaign, evinced cautious welcomes for Mr Bush’s modest proposals to address global warming and healthcare reform.But most Democrats and several prominent Republicans remained… more

The trend is clear: in the Middle East and throughout the world, freedom is on the march - George W. Bush, March 5 2005

When the US president uttered these words less than two years ago, the assertion followed a heady few months for his democratic agenda. Ukraine was basking in the afterglow of its Orange Revolution; Iraqis had voted in their first free poll in decades; and the demonstrations in Lebanon that followed the assassination of Rafiq Hariri,… more

President George W. Bush, setting out his new strategy for Iraq on Wednesday night, appeared set to ignore the advice of allies and the Baker-Hamilton commission by pursuing a policy of isolating and containing Iran and Syria, and by refusing to accept any linkage with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Iran and Syria were warned not to fuel the sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq, with the president signalling in a hardline speech on Wednesday night that the US was prepared… more

Last week in Washington, George W. Bush, US president, and Tony Blair, UK prime minister, engaged in their familiar bluster about "isolating" Iran and Syria if they do not accede to US wishes in the Middle East. This line today is utterly senseless. Iran is in a stronger position than the US and Iran knows it.

The condition for Iranian help on Iraq set by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- that of US withdrawal -- is something the US must… more