William Pfaff, a former editor of Commonweal, is political columnist for the International Herald Tribune in Paris. His most recent book is The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy (Walker & Company).
Europe's nationalist parties attract attention but are hard to take too seriously, given the weight and continuity of the party systems in most countries.
The emergence of the Islamic state; the tension with Iran; and the sinister turn events have taken in Israel are attributed in Europe to American irresponsibility.
The U.S. and its European allies have been the aggressors in this whole unnecessary confrontation. They are the ones who can call it off. There is zero gain in it.
"Austerity" has been the common language of the modern international economy, but is under attack now by the new interpretation of wealth accumulation and finance.
China's Xi Jinping insists he will tolerate no concessions to the calls for electoral and governmental reform now being made in mass demonstrations in Hong Kong.
