October 19, 2009 Issue

Cover art by: Cover photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Images, design by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels

Feature

Obama Trapped Behind Wall of Mideast Containment

Why the Obama administration’s efforts to achieve a Middle East peace between the Israelis and Palestinians are inextricably linked to its efforts to bring Iran to heel.
Ira Chernus
Russian Journalists Still Under Threat

Three years after the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politikovskaya, impunity reigns.
Adam Federman
An ACORN Amendment for Pfizer

Representative Betty McCollum’s “ACORN Act” would prevent the government from doing business with corporations that have been found guilty of felonies.
Jeremy Scahill
Do They Take Us for Shmucks?

The best arguments for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency come from the politicians and lobbyists who oppose it.
Greg Kaufmann
US-UN Ties Still Strained

Barely a week after Barack Obama plunged into the UN for three unprecedented days, our reconciliation with the organization is already showing fault lines.
Barbara Crossette
Iran and the Pipelineistan Opera

The story under the Iranian nuclear story: how Iranian natural gas will reach Europe.
Pepe Escobar
Dick Gephardt’s Spectacular Sellout

As a politician, he was a champion of progressive reform. Now he lobbies for its enemies.
Sebastian Jones
The Coalfield Uprising

Appalachian activists are gaining ground in a campaign to ban mountaintop removal mining.
Jeff Biggers
An Open Letter to President Obama

Mr. President, don’t derail your presidency by bungling Afghanistan.
William R. Polk

Editorial

Copenhagen: Obama Better Go Back

If Obama can go to Copenhagen to support Chicago’s Olympic bid, he can go back for the UN climate change summit.
Naomi Klein
Nation Note

Introducing our new art critic, Barry Schwabsky.
The Editors
Noted.

Activism against Afghanistan escalation, the death of Texas liberal Don Yarborough, a bailout for students
The Editors
Chávez Talks to ‘The Nation’

Hugo Chávez on Barack Obama, the Honduran crisis, and domestic successes and challenges.
The Editors
Rethinking Government

Effective government is the precondition of freedom. And Obama needs to tell us that.
Drew Westen
Israel vs. Human Rights

Israel’s latest strategy for responding to allegations of human rights abuses: kill the messenger.
Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz
Against Escalation

Obama faces a presidency-defining choice: will he escalate in Afghanistan, or plot a new course?
The Editors
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Column

A War of Absurdity

There is no indication that any of the contending forces in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, are interested in bringing Al Qaeda back.
Robert Scheer
Are You Happy?

What a stupid question.
Katha Pollitt
Same as It Ever Was: Talking Head in Pittsburgh

Why the sudden disclosure of a secret uranium enrichment facility in Iran?
Alexander Cockburn
Thoughts of a UN Delegate as Qaddafi’s Speech, Slotted for Fifteen Minutes, Approaches An Hour and a Half

This Muammar is truly loony.
Calvin Trillin

Books & the Arts

Drunk and Disorderly

Jean Rhys wrote about women who tangled with class and sexuality on their own terms.
Phoebe Connelly
Suspended Sentences

Eliot Weinberger’s enigmatic essays save him from becoming a prisoner of his polemical style.
Scott Saul
The First Counter-revolutionary

Thomas Hobbes sensed the revolutionary impulses of early modern Europe and transformed them into a defense of the most hidebound form of rule.
Corey Robin
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