IWhen Barack Obama was asked to grade his first year in office, he said he thought he deserved a B-plus, perhaps even an A-minus. The American public seems to disagree, however, and handed him lower approval ratings than any recent president in this stage of his presidency.

Before September 11, 2001, we Americans did not think much about freedom or democracy in the Middle East. U.S. policy toward the region aimed to assure a reliable flow of oil, to encourage peace between the Arabs and Israel, and above all, during the Cold War, to prevent our rival from gaining any strategic advantage [...]

Socialism was man’s most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in “science.” Indeed, no religion ever spread so far so fast. Yet while socialism had established itself as a fact of life by the beginning of the 20th century, it did not create societies of abundance or give birth [...]